COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENERGY USE EFFICIENCY IN FOOD GRAIN PRODUCTION SYSTEMS OF PAKISTAN

Energy sustainable crops are the requirement of the modern era, where highly populated world requires an intensive supply of food grains. This study deals with the evaluation of energy consumption pattern in food grain production systems of Pakistan. A cross sectional data of 240 food grain farmers (corn and wheat growers) were collected for investigation. Results revealed that the total inputs energy to corn and wheat were 48904.80 and 27635.50 MJ ha(-1) with an output energy of 116188.8 and 57798.0 MJ ha(-1), respectively. Fertilizer, diesel fuel, and water were the main energy consuming inputs in grain production systems of Pakistan, contributing 85% of total input energy. Moreover, energy efficiency, specific energy, energy productivity and net energy gain in corn and wheat production were calculated as 2.38 and 1.86, 6.19 and 6.99 MJ Kg(-1), 0.16 Kg MJ(-1) and 0.14 Kg MJ(-1), and 67284.00, 23740.50 MJ ha(-1) respectively. It was ensued that corn using 1.77 times more input energy than wheat and produced 2.26 times higher than that of wheat. The energy use efficiency based conclusion was drawn that corn production found more sustainable as compared to wheat, so corn could be prioritized as a more suitable planting crop in the selected area of study.