See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322698717 Energy input-output analysis and mechanization status estimation for greenhouse vegetable production in Biskra province (Algeria) Article in Agricultural Engineering International : The CIGR e-journal · December 2017 CITATIONS READS 0 97 2 authors, including: Ahmed Nourani Centre de Recherche Scientifique et Technique sur les Régions Arides (CRSTRA) 24 PUBLICATIONS 9 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Date plam mechanization and dates processing technologies View project Effect of climate change on date palm phenological stages View project All content following this page was uploaded by Ahmed Nourani on 25 January 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. 76 December, 2017 AgricEngInt: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 19, No. 4 Energy input-output analysis and mechanization status estimation for greenhouse vegetable production in Biskra province (Algeria) Ahmed Nourani*, AbdelaaliBencheikh (Scientific and Technical Research Center on Arid Regions (CRSTRA), 07000, Biskra, Algeria) Abstract: Algeria has experienced a notable agricultural development driven by a prosperous in market gardening in plastic greenhouses due of the favorable climatic conditions and the government’s policy. A survey has been conducted in Biskra province, southern of Algeria in order to determine input-output energy used and to estimate the mechanization status for the greenhouse vegetable production. The results revealed that the total energy required for vegetable protected production was 119.68 GJ per hectare where the infrastructure was the highest energy consumer followed by the electricity and fertilizers with a share of 22%, 20% and 19%, respectively. The energy use efficiency (energy ratio) was calculated as 0.82, showing the inefficiency use of energy in the protected vegetable production. The entire farmers use least machinery labor energy in hectare compared to the human energy labor as well asthe itinerary crop was similar for all greenhouses visited. Keywords: protected vegetable,greenhouse, input-output analysis, mechanization-Biskra Citation: Nourani, A., and A. Bencheikh. 2017. Energy input-output analysis and mechanization status estimation for greenhouse vegetable production in Biskra province (Algeria). Agricultural Engineering International: CIGR Journal, 19(4): 76–82. the world have been conducted to estimate the energy 1 Introduction used in greenhouse vegetable production, such as: Ozkan During the last two decades, Algeria has experienced et al. (2004), Elings et al. (2005), Campiglia et al. (2007), a notable agricultural development driven by a Djevic and Dimitrijevic (2009), Mohammadi et al. (2010), prosperous in market gardening under greenhouses due to Ozkan et al. (2011), Pahlavan et al. (2011), Heidari and the favorable climatic conditions and the government’s Omid (2011), Bojacá et al. (2012), Baptista et al. (2012), policy. As results of this development, Biskra province Zarini et al. (2013) and Hedauet al. (2014). However, no becomes the first producer of early vegetables nationally studies have been published on energy input – output (Allache et al., 2015) where, the surface covered by the analysis and the mechanization status estimation of greenhouse has increased by 528.52% over the last 20 greenhouse vegetable production in Algeria. years (Belhadi et al., 2016). With these observations in mind, this study addresses In consideration of the limited natural resources and the determination of input-output energy used for the impact of using different energy sources on greenhouse vegetable production in order to study the environment and human health, it is substantial to energy consumption efficiency. Furthermore, the aim of investigate energy use patterns in agriculture this study is to estimate the mechanization degree and the (Samavatean, 2011). Therefore, research efforts have mechanization index of this production system in Biskra been emphasized on energy and economic analysis of province, southern of Algeria. various agricultural productions for planning resources in 2 Materials and methods the ecosystem (Singh et al., 2002). Several works across 2.1 Study area Received date: 2016-12-15 Accepted date: 2017-04-06 According to Rekibi (2015), Biskra province provides * Corresponding author: A. Nourani, Scientific and Technical Research Center on Arid Regions (CRSTRA), Biskra, Algeria. over 32% of national production of protected crops which Email: nourani83@ gmail.com. make it the first producer of early vegetable in Algeria. December, 2017 Energy analysis and mechanization status for vegetable production in Biskra province Vol. 19, No. 4 77 For this reason, the present research has been carried out 21671 km2, divided to 12 administrative districts (Figure in this region. The study area is located in the 1). Biskra has a hot desert climate, with very hot and dry southeastern of country, the gateway to the Sahara. The summers and mild winters with annual rainfall averaging height above sea level is 112 m which makes it one of the between 120 and 150 mm every year. The average annual lowest cities. The chief town of the province is located at temperature is 20.9°C. 400 km of the capital, Algiers and its surface area is Figure 1 Situation of study area 2.2 Survey fertilizers and chemicals. An investigation was conducted in Biskra province Table 1 Energy equivalent of inputs and output in during the season 2014-2015. The study employed agricultural production Energy equivalent, face-to-face personal interviews using questionnaires Energy source Unit Reference Mj/unit which contained sections providing the economic Inputs characteristics, practices and management of the farm. Human labor h 1.96 Singh et al. (2002) The data have been collected from 65 farmers where Machinery h 62.7 Singh et al. (2002) randomly selected. They present 5% of greenhouse Diesel oil l 45.4 Bojacá et al. (2012) vegetable growers (DSA, 2012) from the six most Infrastructure kg Steel 33 Medina A et al. (2006) productive municipalities, namely: M’ziraa, Ainnaga, Polyethylene 9.9 Medina Aet al. (2006) SidiOkba, Elaghrous, Doucen and Lioua (Figure 1). In Synthetic fiber 1.2 Medina Aet al. (2006) this area, the vegetables produced most extensively were PVC 11.6 Medina Aet al. (2006) tomato, cucumber, eggplant and pepper. Fertilizers kg 2.3 Energy input-output measurement N 60.6 Ozkan et al. (2004) P O 11.1 Ozkan et al. (2004) Energy requirements in agriculture were divided into 2 5 K2O 6.7 Ozkan et al. (2004) two groups, direct and indirect (Samavatean, 2011). In Farmyard manure kg 0.3 Bojacá et al. (2012) this study, direct energy included human labor, diesel, Pesticides kg Mohammadi and Omid water for irrigation and indirect energy includes seeds, Fungicides 216 (2010) fertilizers, farmyard manure, chemicals, machinery and Mohammadi and Omid Insecticides 101.2 infrastructure. Based on the energy equivalents of the (2010) Plant materials inputs and outputs (Table 1), the metabolisable energy Plantlets unit 0.2 Bojacá et al. (2012) was calculated. Renewable energy (RE) consisted of Water for irrigation m3 0.63 Bojacá et al. (2012) human labor, seed, manure and water for irrigation, Electricity (kW h) 3.6 Ozkan et al. (2004) Output whereas non-renewable energy (NRE) includes Tomato, cucumber, kg 0.8 Ozkan et al. (2004) machinery, diesel fuel, electricity, infrastructure, eggplant, pepper 78 December, 2017 AgricEngInt: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 19, No. 4 To analysis the energy flow, energy ratio (energy use with different levels of mechanization degree. This index efficiency) (ER), energy net (EN) and energy productivity has a wide application in the growth of mechanization in (EP) indexes were calculated as following: different years or in comparing the mechanization degree Energy output (MJ/ha) of different operations along with great influence on Output−= input ratio (ER) (1) Energy intput (MJ/ha) analyzing the causes. Total output (kg/ha) Energy productivity (EP) = (2) Mechanization index (IM): Singh (2006) presented a Energy intput (MJ/ha) definition for mechanization index based on using living Energy net (EN) = (3) thing and machine in input energy which is calculated Energy output (MJ/ha)− Energy intput (MJ/ha) from the relationship. Energy intput (MJ/ha) Specific energy = (4) CEM Vegetable output (kg/ha) IM = (11) CEH++ CEA CEM Energy intput (MJ/ha) Energy intensiveness = (5) Cost of cultivation ($/ha) where, IM: mechanization index; CEM: Cost of using Greenhouse production is more expensive than machine; CEH: Cost of manpower; CEA: Cost of using producing the same crop in the open field, the most animal power. important factors determining costs are depreciation of 2.5 Machinery energy ratio (machine index) the structure and equipment, labor, energy and variable The machinery energy ratio is an index which costs such as plant material, substrate and fertilizer (Peet represents the fraction of the total energy inputs through and Welles, 2005). For this reason, the output/input the various tools and implements used in different analysis was also applied in economic benefits. The operations for cultivation of the particular crop (Yadav et process was similar with energy balance analysis. The al., 2013). The machinery energy was determined using economic analysis of the