On-farm Energy Use (Case of Dire County, Kermanshah Province)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the amount of diesel consumption as one of the non-renewable energy sources consumed by the agricultural machinery and water pumps in wheat and corn farms in Dire County,Kermanshah Province, Iran. The population of the study was determined by Bartlett table. Stratified random sampling method and census was used for the selection of respondents. The sample was composed of 247 wheat growers, 235 corn growers, and 57 tractor drivers selected by Bartlett's table. Combine drivers as well as farm irrigation diesel owners were selected by census (N=15, N=48, respectively). The data collection tool was a questionnaire and the data were analyzed by SPSS software package. The findings revealed that in wheat farms, soil preparation had the highest consumption of diesel by 49% and in corn farms inter culturing had the highest diesel consumption by 38%. Moreover, the amount of diesel consumed in 3600 ha wheat and a corn farm in Dire County was 403,852.6 lit/year equivalent to 15,346,399 MJ. Burning this amount of diesel produces about 1, 058,094 kg CO₂/year. Overall, farm machinery, water pumping and irrigation for two major crops in the county are extremely reliant on nonrenewable fossil fuel resulting in large amount of CO₂ emission. Hence, an aggressive and innovative policy is required to restructure and redesign energy system in agriculture sector at national and local levels. Finally, it seems that paradigm shift to sustainable agriculture and development of clean and renewable energy in Iran's agricultural sector is unavoidable.