Converting maize production with low emergy cost and high economic return for sustainable development

Xingya Wang, Weiming Tan, Shunli Zhou, Yang Xu, Tao Cui, Hong Gao, Mingli Chen, Xuehui Dong, Hongyong Sun, Jinzhong Yang, Yongcheng Wu, Fanlei Kong, Ming Zhan, Jinbao Pan, Ye Wang, Xinglong Wang, Ning Luo, Shoubing Huang, Guohua Mi, Dongxing Zhang, Jichao Yuan, Xinping Chen, Qingfeng Meng and Pu Wang

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2021, vol. 136, issue C

Abstract: Promoting more sustainable agriculture while simultaneously meeting the increased demands for food due to the growing population is a great challenge in the 21st century. Here we addressed this challenge by conducting on-farm field experiments at 40 sites across the broad aro-ecological maize region in China during 2017–2018. According to a modern understanding with emergy and economic aspects, a set of new variety-based low emergy system was developed. Compared with the current traditional farmers’ system, the new system improved the sustainability (emergy sustainability index) by 19% and increased economic return by 47% while similar productivity (maize yield) was achieved. More than 80% of the modeled yield potential was realized. Moreover, the decrease of nonrenewable materials input in the new system contributed to 88% of the sustainability improvement. As food and resource concerns become more severe in many global regions, this new system is likely to supply a typical case and could be adopted widely to realize the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in agricultural transformation.

Keywords: Emergy assessment; Cropping system; Adapted hybrid; Sustainable agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2020.110443

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