ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF CUCUMBER FARMING USING ENERGY AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION INDEXES

Energy and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions evaluation is from the most common methods for assessment of environmental status of production activities. In this study energy and GHG balance in the greenhouse cucumber production in Yazd province of Iran were assessed. Data of this study were collected using a face to face questionnaire method from the farmers growing cucumber crops. Study results showed that the average annual crop yield of the greenhouses was 89868.54 kg/ha which demanded an average energy input of 699217.04 MJ/ha. Diesel fuel and electricity were the biggest energy consumers in the farms with shares of 59.31 and 25.58% of total input energy. These two inputs also were the biggest air pollutant with the emissions of 33128.65 and 62309.23 kg CO2-eq per hectare respectively. The results also showed that a quadratic model was the best for modeling the relations between the crop yield and total energy input, GHG per yield and energy intensity; and linear model was the best for modeling relation between yield and energy productivity.