Energy and Agricultural Environment

By PH.D. M.T. Al-Mansouri

The evaluation of biological-agricultural results in multi-directional plant cultivation in the crop-rotation system and in conditions of extreme specialization - the mono-culture system; Evaluating the possibilities of diminishing the negative-biological and production results of continuous cultivation by pesticide appl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rustik Haws LLC
• Release date: Jul 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649341181

PH.D. M.T. Al-Mansouri

M.T. Al-Mansouri is a Canadian Arab poet and writer, born in Yemen on June 10th, 1963. He is a Hyde Park writer for the Arab Times newspaper. He is a Ph.D. holder in the field of agricultural economics. He has many specialized researches in his field, which he taught at Qatar University. He wrote and published scientific journals in international magazines in several languages including, Arabic, English, and Polish. He is an author of two books entitled "Terrorism the Origin and the Sources", and "The Recommendations of the Rooster and the Sea".

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Energy and Agricultural Environment by M.T. Al-Mansouri, Ph. D.

This book is written to provide information and motivation to readers. It’s purpose is not to render any type of psychological, legal, or professional advice of any kind. The content is the sole opinion and expression of the author, and not necessarily that of the publisher.

Copyright © 2020 by M.T. Al-Mansouri,Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any form by any means, including, but not limited to, recording, photocopying, or taking screenshots of parts of the book, without prior written permission from the author or the publisher. Brief quotations for noncommercial purposes, such as book reviews, permitted by Fair Use of the U.S. Copyright Law, are allowed without written permissions, as long as such quotations do not cause damage to the book’s commercial value. For permissions, write to the publisher, whose address is stated below.

ISBN: 978-1-64934-021-4 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-64934-118-1 (Ebook)

Printed in the United States of America.

Rustik Haws LLC

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Tampa, FL 33602

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Contents

Energy Sources of the World

The Agricultural Systems in the European Journals

Reasons Poland Changed to Crop Rotation from Monoculture Cultivation

Crop rotation and ecological farming

Criteria of Crop Evaluation from Environmental and Economic Literature

Barriers Facing European Scientists on Evaluation of Plant ProductionHow Scientists Evaluate Energy in Agricultural Production

THE RANGE AND METHODS OF RESEARCH

The source of data and compared factors

The selected herbicides and fungicides were used in the years

1983-1987

Agricultural and economic evaluation of input

Plant efficiency

Human and machine labour inputs

Accumulated energy input

The ecological and agro-technological

conditions of the experiment

Soil conditions

Basic soil cultivation

Plant fertilization

Methods and schedule of sowing

Crop cultivation and harvesting

RESULTS AND DISCUSION

Evaluation of plant efficiency in various crop measurements

CONCLUSION

Human labour input

Total labour expenditure

The structure of labour expenditure

Labour effectiveness

Total energy expenditure

Accumulated energy input

The structure of energy expenditure

The energy consumption of production

The material consumption of production

Efficiency of energy input

The efficiency of accumulated energy input

CONSOLIDATION AND CONCLUSION

AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF CROP ROTATION AND MONOCULTURE SYSTEMS

AGRICULTURAL AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF CROP

ROTATION AND MONOCULTURE SYSTEMS

Summary

References

Energy Sources of the World

Energy in agriculture production is divided into energy input and output and both of them involve two or more streams of energy: materials energy input stream which consists of seeds, grains, leaves, plant residue, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and fertilizers, and the agro-technical operations energy input stream which consists of tillage, sowing, fertilizers, irrigation, cultivation and pest control, and harvesting and transportation of the yields. On the other hand, the output energy streams which involves the materials stream of energy output which consists of seeds, grains, leaves, straws, plant residues, insects and herbs.

Additionally, there are other streams of energy, which are related to the agricultural environment such as solar energy, winds, rains, herbs, insects and mankind activities. Studies of the agriculture economic evaluation of plant cultivation and system of plant sequence in international literature may be viewed in a range of input and energy effects. Monetary input due to different agro-economic relationships makes the economic evaluation comparison impossible.

From the quoted literature in this article, and other studies not mentioned it is clear that the studies on energy utilization in agriculture were first introduced in the United States of America, Canada and England. The pioneering dissertation was the work of PIMENTEL form Cornel University entitled’ Energy Use in World Food Production’ (1974). Detailed studies carried out 44 farms in the State of Michigan considered plant production [ STOUT et al 1982 ]. The author points out that mineral fertilizers constitute 25-75% of the total energy input and corn drying as much as 27%. In animal production, the process of maintaining stables is the most energy consuming.

At the same time, studies considering the same matter were under taken in Great Britain. The main criteria of evaluation and indicators were included in the book by LEACH entitled ‘ Energy and Food Production’ (1976). In a later work entitled ‘ Energy Agriculture and Management’ [ ROBINSON AND MOLLAN 1982 ] a wide range of results and opinions on energy consumption regarding such elements of the agro-technological process as drying, crop storing, animal production energy, plant and animal product processing were shown.

American, Canadian and British sources of studies were the inspiration for studying energy in plant production in India [ ZENTENER and CAMPBELL 1974. PATHAK and BINING 1985, SINGH et al 1985, MITTAL et al 1992 ]. In India the plant production is mainly dependent upon irrigation, human and animal labour input, and to a lesser degree on material input. Rice, wheat and corn as the main cereal cover 75% of arable lands, but further increase and intensification of production is required. For this reason, there have been many studies on the species cultivated in the system of two field rotation ‘ rice-wheat’ and corn-wheat’. The amount of energy input on those rotations was lower than or close to data given in East Europe literature, which was also dependent on the region and soil fertility. The structure of the input, however, is different in rotational cultivation of wheat with rice up top 68% of the total energy input was used on irrigation, while in the case of wheat with corn it was only 39%. However, over 50% of that came from non-renewable sources such as petrol and electricity.

In Chinese agriculture wheat, corn, rice, soya and millet are the main crops. One hundred fifty percent more energy was used to cultivate them and they were 10-100 times more energy-consuming than in American agriculture[ DAZHONG and PIMENTAL 1984 ].

In Europe, the interest in energy input in agriculture is mainly in the cultivation of winter wheat, spring barley, corn and sugar beet, and to a smaller degree leguminous and oil rape. Apart from the pioneering country, England, the above crops were widely developed in the Czech and Slovakian Republics. The following are works on that subject [ KREJĆÍŘ 1986, 1988, STRAIL and IMON 1988, IMON 1990, STRAŠIL1990. BRAUER 1992, DAOAKOVA 1991, REPKA AND DANKO 1991 ].

The above works are significant due their consideration of solar energy, the energy of after-harvest remains, energy input in plant cultivation as well as their cultivation in a crop rotation system. The works of [KREJČÍŘ 1986 and BRAUER 1992 ] described a monoculture system. From other countries of southern Europe, the following works were quoted from Romania [ STEFAN and TANASESCU 1991 ], from Greece [TSATSIRELIS 1993 ], and from Switzerland [ ALFÖLDI and NIGGLI 1994 ].

The latter considers energy input valuation in biodynamic and biological systems compared to a conventional system. The authors prove that energy input can be lowered in ecological systems due to the abandonment of artificial fertilizer and pesticide usage, lowering the yield and improving the input efficiency. When summarizing the