Methane emissions and productivity index in the Mexican sugarcane crop fields Chapter uri icon

abstract

  • The cultivation and processing of sugarcane is a very important economic, energetic and alimentary activity in more than 100 countries worldwide. Mexico ranks sixth in overall sucrose production. In the raw material production, the pre-harvest burning and burning is a common management practice during the harvest season (zafra) in more than 80%25 of Mexican sugarcane acreage, resulting in emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, which may vary depending on acreage, productivity, soil characteristics, management, suitability and weather conditions. The aim of this study is to report the results of researching conducted in Mexico about environmental impacts and socioeconomic from intensive and extensive burning cane fields before harvest to establish the correlation between the productivity, it means, index raw material/sucrose production, and methane emissions to the atmosphere due to burning harvest. The methodology used consist in calculate the productivity index (harvested acreage for a ton of sucrose) comparing the sugarcane production areas with burnt and organic farming, sugar production rates in sugar mills and methane emissions. The methane released was obtained using the techniques proposed by the IPCC. The results show that in the 55 areas of sugarcane supply in Mexico, while emissions increase, the productivity index has values close to zero, in most cases because the cane that is burned is cultivated in a lower surface area. The study period was 1990-2014 crop season, in which the highest emission value was 432,995 t of CO2 eq. with a productivity index of 0.011 ha ton-1 in 2013, and the lowest value was of 266,561 t of CO2 eq. with a productivity index of 0.010 ha ton-1 in 2005. The correlation between sugarcane production and harvested acreage is 0.88 due to harvest surface increase as long as the national production increases too. © 2017 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

publication date

  • 2017-01-01