Geography Case
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Energy in agriculture is important in terms of crop production and agro-processing for value adding (Ozkan et al, 2004). Energy is the basic driving force in mans development. The history of civilization is largely a story of mans progress in harnessing energy, i.e., to convert energy to a more useful form. The only commercial energy input in traditional farming is to produce hand tools and animal implements. In the evolution from traditional to modern farming, the commercial energy use has been increased sharply (Iqbal, 2007).
Despite increased production in modern farming systems due to high consumption of energy in the field, ecstatic impacts environmental immensity e.g. degradation and erosion of the soil structure, and environmental pollution brought about carbon dioxide emissions, loss of quality food and risk of their toxicity and high energy costs created. As a result, in these systems reduced energy efficiency than traditional systems and making instability and the instability of these systems (zoghipour, 2009).
The relation between agriculture and energy is very close. Agriculture itself is an energy user and energy supplier in the form of bio-energy (Alam, 2005). Energy use in agricultural production has become more intensive due to the use of fossil fuel chemical fertilizers, pesticides, machinery and electricity to provide substantial increases in food production. However, more intensive energy use has brought some important human health and environment problems, so efficient use of inputs has become important in terms of sustainable agricultural production (Yilmaz et al, 2005). As such efficient use of the energy resources is vital in terms of increasing production, productivity, competitiveness of agriculture as well as sustainability of rural living. Energy auditing is one of the most common approaches to examining energy efficiency and environmental impact of the production system. It enables researchers to calculate output-input ratio, relevant indicators, and energy use patterns in an agricultural activity (Adem Hatirli et al, 2006). Also, the energy audit provides sufficient data to establish functional forms to investigate the relationship between energy inputs and outputs. Estimating these functional forms is very useful for determining elasticity of inputs on yield and production (Adem Hatirli et al, 2006).
Energy requirements in agriculture are divided into two groups being direct and indirect. Direct energy is required to perform various tasks related to crop production processes such as land preparation, irrigation, interculture, threshing, harvesting and transportation of agricultural inputs and farm produce (Singh, 2000). Indirect energy, on the other hand, consists of the energy used in the manufacture, packaging and transport of fertilizers, pesticides and farm machinery (CAEEDAC, 2000; Kennedy, 2000). As the name addresses, indirect energy is not directly used on the farm. Major