Estimation of Indirect Energy Input and CO₂ Emissions Due to Agricultural Machinery Operation in Fields Applying Crop Rotation

——Application on Crop Rotation in Tokachi Region and Proposal of Using Proportional Division Method——

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to help establishing the LCA method for crop production. Therefore, we suggest the method of proportional inference allocation to estimate the amount of indirect emissions of CO₂ as well as the indirect energy input, resulting from the application of agricultural machinery in the crop rotation based on block rotation, for each crop per hectare. In this method, the general use of the machine, service life of machine, the difference between propelled and self-propelled machines, as well as the area of the planted crop in the rotation are considered. By applying this method at the model farms of Hokkaido Tokachi, we could obtain basic data for evaluating the productivity and the environmental impact.