Abstract
Identifying an energy-efficient system with low energy use, low global warming potential (GWP), and high profitability is essential for ensuring the sustainability of the agro-environment. Given the global importance of China’s rice production, this study determines energy, environmental, and economic performances of transplanted (TPR) and direct-seeded rice system (DSR) in central China. The results showed that total energy inputs for TPR and DSR were 31.5 and 22.8 GJ ha-1 across two growing seasons, respectively. Higher energy input for TPR primarily resulted from extra energy use of the nursery beds and transplanting. Higher energy output of DSR (202.5 GJ ha-1) over that of TPR (187.7 GJ ha-1) was due to a slightly higher yield from DSR. Therefore, DSR exhibited significantly higher energy use efficiency than that of TPR. Lower specific energy for DSR (2.78 MJ kg-1) relative to TPR (4.02 MJ kg-1) indicated that the energy used to produce per unit of rice grain could be reduced by 30.8% by adopting DSR. On average, GWP of DSR was reduced by 5.6% compared with TPR. Moreover, DSR had a 55.8% higher gross return and a 25.7% lower production cost than those of TPR. Overall, compared with TPR, DSR has the potential to increase gross economic return and energy output with reduced energy input and emissions. Therefore, this study suggests that DSR is an environmentally-sound and economically-viable production system. As such, DSR is noted as an energy-efficient and climate-smart production system that could be used by policymakers and farmers to achieve not only improvements in the environment but also financial benefits.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Data analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files]. Any other data used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Aghaalikhani M, Kazemi-Poshtmasari H, Habibzadeh F (2013) Energy use pattern in rice production: a case study from Mazandaran province, Iran. Energy Convers Manage 69:157–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.01.034
Bouman B (2009) How much water does rice use? Rice Today 69:115–133
Canakci M, Topakci M, Akinci I, Ozmerzi A (2005) Energy use pattern of some field cops and vegetable production: case study for Antalya region, Turkey. Energy Convers Manage 46:655–666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2004.04.008
Chakraborty D, Ladha JK, Rana DS, Jat ML, Gathala MK, Yadav S, Rao AN, Ramesha M, Raman A (2017) A global analysis of alternative tillage and crop establishment practices for economically and environmentally efficient rice production. Sci Rep 7:9342. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09742-9
Chaudhary VP, Singh KK, Pratibha G, Bhattacharyya R, Shamim M, Srinivas I, Patel A (2017) Energy conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation under different production systems in rice cultivation. Energy 130:307–317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.04.131
Chen X (2016) Economic potential of biomass supply from crop residues in China. Appl Energy 166:141–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.01.034
Chen FB, Chen PY (2011) Present situation and economic benefit of direct-seeded rice in South China. China Rice 17:1–5 (in Chinese)
Chen XP, Cui ZL, Vitousek PM, Cassman KG, Matson PA, Bai JS, Meng Q, Hou P, Yue S, Römheld A, Zhang F (2011) Integrated soil-crop system management for food security. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:6399–6404. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1101419108
Chen C, van Groenigen KJ, Yang H, Hungate BA, Yang B, Tian Y, Chen J, Dong W, Huang S, Deng A, Jiang Y (2020) Global warming and shifts in cropping systems together reduce China's rice production. Global Food Sec 24:100359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100359
Chi ZZ, Jiang XL, Zheng JG (2008) Comparison of yield and economic effect of rice under different planting patterns. Crops 2:73–75 (in Chinese with English Abstract)
Coltro L, Marton LFM, Pilecco FP, Pilecco AC, Mattei LF (2017) Environmental profile of rice production in southern Brazil: a comparison between irrigated and subsurface drip irrigated cropping systems. J Clean Prod 153:491–505. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.09.207
Eskandari H, Attar S (2015) Energy comparison of two rice cultivation systems. Renew Sustain Energ Rev 42:666–671. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.10.050
FAOSTAT (2020) FAO Statistical databases. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data. Accessed 16 Dec 2020
Farooq M, Siddique KH, Rehman H, Aziz T, Lee DJ, Wahid A (2011) Rice direct seeding: experiences, challenges and opportunities. Soil Till Res 111:87–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2010.10.008
Gathala MK, Timsina J, Islam MS, Rahman MM, Hossain MI, Harun-Ar-Rashid M, Ghosh A, Krupnik T, Tiwari T, McDonald A (2015) Conservation agriculture based tillage and crop establishment options can maintain farmers' yields and increase profits in South Asia's rice-maize systems: evidence from Bangladesh. Field Crops Res 172:85–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2014.12.003
Godfray HCJ, Beddington JR, Crute IR, Haddad L, Lawrence D, Muir JF, Robinson S, Thomas SM, Toulmin C (2010) Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science 327:812–818. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1185383
Gordon LJ, Steffen W, Jönsson BF, Folke C, Falkenmark M, Johannessen Å (2005) Human modification of global water vapor flows from the land surface. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:7612–7617. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0500208102
Groenigen KV, Kessel CV, Hungate BA (2013) Increased greenhouse gas intensity of rice production under future atmospheric conditions. Nat Clim Chang 3:288–291. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1712
Gutierrez J, Kim SY, Kim PJ (2013) Effect of rice cultivar on CH4 emissions and productivity in Korean paddy soil. Field Crops Res 146:16–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2013.03.003
IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds Parry ML, et al. (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, UK)
IPCC (2019) Refinement to the 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, eds. Calvo Buendia E, et al. Switzerland: IPCC. 2019
Kazemi H, Kamkar B, Lakzaei S, Badsar M, Shahbyki M (2015) Energy flow analysis for rice production in different geographical regions of Iran. Energy 84:390–836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.03.005
Kumar V, Ladha JK (2011) Direct seeding of rice: recent developments and future research needs. Adv Agron 111:297–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-387689-8.00001-1
Kumar A, Nayak AK, Mohanty S, Das BS (2016) Greenhouse gas emission from direct seeded paddy fields under different soil water potentials in Eastern India. Agric Ecosyst Environ 228:111–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2016.05.007
Lal B, Panda BB, Gautam P, Raja R, Singh T, Mohanty S, Shahid M, Tripathi R, Kumar A, Nayak AK (2015) Input-output energy analysis of rainfed rice-based cropping systems in Eastern India. Agron J 107:1750–1756. https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj14.0313
Liu HJ, Chen LG, Zheng JC, Li B, Zhou W (2014) Effects of different planting modes on grain yield formation and economic benefits of rice (Oryza sativa L.). Jiangsu J Agric Sci 30:474–479 (in Chinese with English abstract)
Maraseni T, Qu J (2016) An international comparison of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions. J Clean Prod 135:1256–1266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.07.035
Maraseni T, Chen G, Banhazi T, Bundschuh J, Yusuf T (2015) An assessment of direct on-farm energy use for high value grain crops grown under different farming practices in Australia. Energies 8:13033–13046. https://doi.org/10.3390/en81112353/
Maraseni TN, Deo RC, Qu J, Gentle P, Neupane PR (2018) An international comparison of rice consumption behaviors and greenhouse gas emissions from rice production. J Clean Prod 172:2288–2300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.182
Meena RS, Gogaoi N, Kumar S (2017) Alarming issues on agricultural crop production and environmental stresses. J Clean Prod 142:3357–3359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.10.134
Mohammadi A, Rafiee S, Jafari A, Keyhani A, Mousavi-Avval SH, Nonhebel S (2014) Energy use efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions of farming systems in North Iran. Renew Sustain Energ Rev 30:724–733. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.11.012
Mohammadi A, Cowie AL, Cacho O, Kristiansen P, Mai TL, Joseph S (2017) Biochar addition in rice farming systems: Economic and energy benefits. Energy 140:415–425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.08.116
Mushtaq S, Maraseni TN, Maroulis J, Hafeez M (2009) Energy and water tradeoffs in enhancing food security: a selective international assessment. Energy Pol 37:3635–3644. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.04.030
Nabavi-Pelesaraei A, Rafiee S, Mohtasebi SS, Hosseinzadeh-Bandbafha H, Chau KW (2017) Energy consumption enhancement and environmental life cycle assessment in paddy production using optimization techniques. J Clean Prod 162:571–586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.071
Normile D (2008) Reinventing rice to feed the world. Science 321:330–3333. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.321.5887.330
Pagani M, Johnson TG, Vittuari M (2017) Energy input in conventional and organic paddy rice production in Missouri and Italy: a comparative case study. J Environ Manage 188:173–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2016.12.010
Pathak H, Sankhyan S, Dubey DS, Bhatia A, Jain N (2013) Dry direct-seeding of rice for mitigating greenhouse gas emission: field experimentation and simulation. Paddy Water Environ 11:593–601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-012-0352-0
Peng S, Buresh RJ, Huang J, Yang J, Zou Y, Zhong X, Wang G, Zhang F (2006) Strategies for overcoming low agronomic nitrogen use efficiency in irrigated rice systems in China. Field Crops Res 96:37–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2005.05.004
Peng S, Tang Q, Zou Y (2009) Current status and challenges of rice production in China. Plant Prod Sci 12:3–8. https://doi.org/10.1626/pps.12.3
Peng S, Buresh RJ, Huang J, Zhong X, Zou Y, Yang J, Wang G, Liu Y, Hu R, Tang Q, Cui K, Zhang F, Dobermann A (2010) Improving nitrogen fertilization in rice by site-specific N management. A review. Agron Sustain Dev 30:649–656. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0394-0_42
Pishgar-Komleh SH, Sefeedpari P, Rafiee S (2011) Energy and economic analysis of rice production under different farm levels in Guilan province of Iran. Energy 36:5824–5831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2011.08.044
Pittelkow CM, Adviento-Borbe MA, Kessel C, Hill JE, Linquist BA (2014) Optimizing rice yields while minimizing yield-scaled global warming potential. Glob Chang Biol 20:1382–1393. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12413
Pokhrel A, Soni P (2017) Performance analysis of different rice-based cropping systems in tropical region of Nepal. J Environ Manage 197:70–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.03.035
Quilty JR, Mckinley J, Pede VO, Buresh RJ, Jr TQC, Sandro JM (2014) Energy efficiency of rice production in farmers' fields and intensively cropped research fields in the Philippines. Field Crops Res 168:8-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2014.08.001
Rautaray SK, Pradhan S, Mohanty S, Dubey R, Raychaudhuri S, Mohanty RK, Mishra A, Ambast SK (2020) Energy efficiency, productivity and profitability of rice farming using Sesbania as green manure-cum-cover crop. Nutr Cycl Agroecosys 116:83–101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-019-10034-z
Singh S, Sharma S, Prasad R (2001) The effect of seeding and tillage methods on the productivity of rice-wheat cropping system. Soil Till Res 16:125–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-1987(00)00188-4
Singh H, Singh AK, Kushwaha HL, Singh A (2007) Energy consumption pattern of wheat production in India. Energy 32:1848–1854. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2007.03.001
Statistical Bureau of Hubei Province (2020) Population, land area, and areas under cultivation. http://www.stats-hb.gov.cn/. Accessed 16 Dec 2020
Sun L, Hussain S, Liu H, Peng S, Huang J, Cui K, Nie L (2015) Implications of low sowing rate for hybrid rice varieties under dry direct-seeded rice system in central China. Field Crops Res 175:87–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2015.02.009
Tabbal DF, Bouman BAM, Bhuiyan SI, Sibayan EB, Sattar MA (2002) On-farm strategies for reducing water input in irrigated rice: case studies in the Philippines. Agric Water Manage 56:93–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-3774(02)00007-0
Tao Y, Chen Q, Peng S, Wang W, Nie L (2016) Lower global warming potential and higher yield of wet direct-seeded rice in central China. Agron Sustain Dev 36:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-016-0361-2
Thanawong K, Perret SR, Basset-Mens C (2014) Eco-efficiency of paddy rice production in Northeastern Thailand: a comparison of rain-fed and irrigated cropping systems. J Clean Prod 73:204–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.067
Wang W, Peng S, Liu H, Tao Y, Huang J, Cui K, Peng S, Nie L (2017) The possibility of replacing puddled transplanted flooded rice with dry seeded rice in central China: A review. Field Crops Res 214:310–320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2017.09.028
Wu H, Yuan Z, Geng Y, Ren J, Jiang S, Sheng H, Gao L (2017) Temporal trends and spatial patterns of energy use efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions in crop production of Anhui Province, China. Energy 133:955–968. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.05.173
Xu X, Xie J, Hou Y, He P, Pampolino MF, Zhao S, Qiu S, Johnston A, Zhou W (2016) Estimating nutrient uptake requirements for rice in China. Field Crops Res 180:37–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2015.05.008
Xu L, Li X, Wang X, Xiong D, Wang F (2019) Comparing the grain yields of direct-seeded and transplanted rice: A meta-analysis. Agronomy 9:767. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9110767
Yadav GS, Lal R, Meena RS, Datta M, Babu S, Das A, Layek J, Saha P (2017) Energy budgeting for designing sustainable and environmentally clean/safer cropping systems for rainfed rice fallow lands in India. J Clean Prod 158:29–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.04.17
Yuan S, Peng S (2017a) Trends in the economic return on energy use and energy use efficiency in China's crop production. Renew Sustain Energ Rev 70:836–844. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.264
Yuan S, Peng S (2017b) Input-output energy analysis of rice production in different crop management practices in central China. Energy 141:1124–1132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.10.007
Yuan S, Nie L, Wang F, Huang J, Peng S (2017) Agronomic performance of inbred and hybrid rice cultivars under simplified and reduced-input practices. Field Crops Res 210:129–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2017.05.024
Yuan S, Cassman KG, Huang JL, Peng SB, Grassini P (2019) Can ratoon cropping improve resource use efficiencies and profitability of rice in central China? Field Crops Res 234:66–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2019.02.004
Acknowledgements
We thank Canjin Zhou, Hantang Liu, and Xing Yu for help with conducting the field experiments and their technological supports. This work was supported by the Earmarked Fund for China Agriculture Research System (CARS-01-20), Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University of China (IRT1247), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0300101), China Scholarship Council (Grant 201706760015), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M682439). The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Funding
Earmarked Fund for China Agriculture Research System (CARS-01-20), Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University of China (IRT1247), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0300101), China Scholarship Council (Grant 201706760015), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M682439).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
SP, SY, and XZ designed the project. SY and XZ carried out the field experiments. SY, SP, LX, and XL analyzed the data. SY and SP wrote the paper. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable
Consent for publication
Not applicable
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
ESM 1
(DOCX 27 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yuan, S., Zhan, X., Xu, L. et al. Increase energy use efficiency and economic benefit with reduced environmental footprint in rice production of central China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 7382–7392 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16217-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16217-y