Comparative Study on Carbon Footprint Assessment of Rice-Wheat Production System

The carbon footprint is a robust tool to guide sustainable food production system. It is widely accepted as an indicator of GHGs emissions and their impact on global warming. An assessment was undertaken to measure the carbon footprint (CF) of rice-wheat production for two different locations i.e., Damoh (L1) and Ludhiana (L2), comes under central plateau and hill region, and Trans-Gangetic plain region of India, respectively. Further, variability in CF among these two climatically diversified regions having different soil type and management practices was analysed and compared. Results showed that, CF per unit area of rice and wheat production was obtained as 0.497 t Ce/ha and 0.481 t Ce/ha, respectively. Key contributors to CF were nitrogen fertilizer and energy use (diesel for tillage, sowing, harvesting and transport, and electricity for irrigation) for both crops in both regions. Nitrogen fertilizer comprised 27% and 31% of CF in rice, and 30% and 42% in wheat, for L1 and L2, respectively. Diesel and electric energy contributed 36% and 18% (rice, L1), 26% and 27% (rice, L2), 32% and 30% (wheat, L1), and 30% and 18% (wheat, L2). As the contributing factors to the CF vary between regions, mitigation strategies that account for regional diversity are likely to yield greater effectiveness than approaches solely focused on the country level.