Since agriculture is very diversified. Is there any standard procedure to measure carbon footprints in crop production ?
#Develop greener agro-systems
#Improve crop rotation
#Improve cultural practices
#Avoid excessive fertilization
#Develop Agroforestry
#Manage bare fallow land
Do you want to study carbon footprint of a crop ( not crop production) under a given agro-ecosystem or in response to set of inputs , not so clear question , please..
Following key farming tactics that are proven to be effective in increasing grain production while lowering carbon footprint:
1. Using diversified cropping systems can reduce the system’s carbon footprint by 32 to 315 % compared with conventional monoculture systems;
2. Improving N fertilizer use efficiency can lower the carbon footprints of field crops as N fertilizer applied to these crops contributed 36 to 52 % of the total emissions;
3. Adopting intensified rotation with reduced summer fallow can lower the carbon footprint by as much as 150 %, compared with a system that has high frequency of summer fallow;
4. Enhancing soil carbon sequestration can reduce carbon footprint, as the emissions from crop inputs can be partly offset by carbon conversion from atmospheric CO2 into plant biomass and ultimately sequestered into the soil;
5. Using reduced tillage in combination with crop residue retention can increase soil organic carbon and reduce carbon footprints;
6. Integrating key cropping practices can increase crop yield by 15 to 59 %,reduce emissions by 25 to 50 %, and lower the carbon footprint of cereal crops by 25 to 34 %; and
7. Including N2-fixing pulses in rotations can reduce the use of inorganic fertilizer, and lower carbon footprints. With the adoption of these improved farming tactics, one can optimize the system performance while reducing the carbon footprint of crop cultivation.
I think it would be also important to have an understanding of the ability of C sequestration or loss from the soil as this could vary greatly and be either a positive, as in the case of the ability of some no-till production to capture and store C, or loss, as in the case of a production system using tillage which speeds up C loss from the soil.
Janel Louise Ohletz, good point . How do we relate carbon sequestration capacity of soil vis-a-vis plants ability to sequester carbon in its canopy....And , to what extent , the carbon capture by plants aid in off-setting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere...would be inetresting to debate
I think I will look at the whole crop cycle from farm to fork. The fertilizer used and the amount of energy used. the amount of carbon sequestrated by the crop, the energy used while the crop is in the farm, energy consumed in processing the crop before being transported to supermarket and brought to my kitchen.
To estimate the carbon footprint of crop production, the following sources of green house gas emissions should be taken into consideration. 1. Direct soil N2O emissions 2. Indirect soil N2O emissions 3. the soil carbon change 4. CO2 fertilizer and machinery manufacturing 5. CO2 field operations and 6. CO2 on-farm transport.
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