Material Cycle of Agriculture on Miyakojima Island: Material Flow Analysis for Sugar Cane, Pasturage and Beef Cattle

Shuichi Tamura and Koichi Fujie
Additional contact information
Shuichi Tamura: Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Sogo-Kenkyu-Tou Room S407, 79-7 Tokiwa-dai, Hodogayaku, Yokohama-city 240-850, Japan
Koichi Fujie: Center for Risk Management and Safety Sciences, Faculty of Environmental and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, Sogo-Kenkyu-Tou Room S407, 79-7 Tokiwa-dai, Hodogayaku, Yokohama National University, Yokohama-city 240-850, Japan

Sustainability, 2014, vol. 6, issue 2, 1-24

Abstract: Agriculture on Miyakojima Island is highly dependent on imported fertilizer and feed. To reduce this dependence, the present research examines the biomass resources on the island by conducting a material flow analysis of stockbreeding and other related systems. To accurately quantify the amount of available biomass resources, loss ratios of the storage and composting processes are established. Then, a material flow analysis of a composting facility is made. Finally, current material flows between beef cattle, sugar cane and pasturage are shown. Based on this research, two proposals are made: the first is to use urine as liquid fertilizer, which is currently being done in Saga prefecture. The precedent of using urine as fertilizer is now widely accepted in the Saga area; is considered to be readily adoptable in other areas and could be substituted for the imported fertilizers on Miyakojima Island. The second is to use more residues of sugar cane for the beef cattle feed when the pasturage growth is slow in the winter. The present research suggests that the silage feeds for beef cattle.

Keywords: material flow analysis; material cycle; biomass resource utilization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/2/812/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/2/812/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:6:y:2014:i:2:p:812-835:d:33152

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().