Mansour Saadouninejad; Morteza Almassi; mohammad ghahderijani
Abstract
This study was conducted in order to investigate the factors of sugarcane production (inputs: physical-consumption) and optimization of energy consumption for sugarcane production using a data envelopment analysis in Khuzestan province, Amirkabir Agro-industrial Company Unit. The necessary information ...
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This study was conducted in order to investigate the factors of sugarcane production (inputs: physical-consumption) and optimization of energy consumption for sugarcane production using a data envelopment analysis in Khuzestan province, Amirkabir Agro-industrial Company Unit. The necessary information to conduct this study was collected from Agro-industrial of sugarcane Amirkabir experts through face-to-face interviews and questionnaire completion. According to the results, of the total energy consumed in production, the energy of cuttings and chemical fertilizers had the largest share among the consumed inputs with 59 and 16 (%), respectively. Biocides 3.15 (%), agricultural machines 1.09 (%) and human labor 0.06 (%) were the least energy-consuming inputs among other sugarcane production inputs. According to the results obtained from this research, it was found that two inputs sugarcane cuttings and chemical fertilizer have the highest amount of consumption among all the inputs for production. Also, the results of data coverage analysis showed that nitrogen fertilizer and human labor had the largest share of stored energy with 42 and 60.31 (%). The lowest share of energy stored in production belonged to chemical pesticides and phosphorus fertilizer, respectively. The results showed that reducing the consumption of chemical fertilizers and diesel fuel is important for energy storage and reducing the problem of environmental risk in the region. Saving in diesel fuel is possible by improving the performance of the irrigation pump and using new tractors and soil analysis to improve the use of chemical fertilizers.