A comparative study on carbon footprint of rice production between household and aggregated farms from Jiangxi, China

Quantifying the carbon footprint (CF) for crop production can help identify key options to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in agriculture. In the present study, both household and aggregated farm scales were surveyed to obtain the data of rice production and farming management practices in a typical rice cultivation area of Northern Jiangxi, China. The CFs of the different rice systems including early rice, late rice, and single rice under household and aggregated farm scale were calculated. In general, early rice had the lower CF in terms of land use and grain production being 4.54±0.44 t CO2-eq./ha and 0.62±0.1 t CO2-eq./ t grain than single rice (6.84±0.79 t CO2-eq./ha and 0.80±0.13 t CO2-eq./t grain) and late rice (8.72±0.54 t CO2-eq./ha and 1.1±0.17 t CO2-eq./t grain). The emissions from nitrogen fertilizer use accounted for 33 % of the total CF on average and the direct CH4 emissions for 57 %. The results indicated that the CF of double rice cropping under aggregated farm being 0.86±0.11 t CO2-eq./t grain was lower by 25 % than that being 1.14±0.25 t CO2-eq./t grain under household farm, mainly due to high nitrogen use efficiency and low methane emissions. Therefore, developing the aggregated farm scale with efficient use of agro-chemicals and farming operation for greater profitability could offer a strategy for reducing GHG emissions in China’s agriculture.