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In the context of global warming, agriculture, as the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after industry, had attracted widespread attention from all walks of life to reduce agricultural emissions. The carbon footprint of the planting production system of the Heilongjiang Land Reclamation Area (HLRA), an important commodity grain base in China, was evaluated and analyzed in this paper. On this basis, this paper sought feasible strategies to reduce carbon emissions from two aspects: agronomic practices and cropping structure adjustment, which were particularly crucial to promote the low-carbon and sustainable development of agriculture in HLRA. Therefore, using the accounting methods in IPCC and Low Carbon Development and Guidelines for the Preparation of Provincial Greenhouse Gas Inventories compiled by the Chinese government, relevant data were collected from 2000 to 2017 in HLRA and accounted for the carbon emissions of the planting production system in four aspects: carbon emissions from agricultural inputs, N2O emissions from managed soils, CH4 emissions from rice cultivation and straw burning emissions. Then carbon uptake consisted of seeds and straws. Finally, with farmers' incomes were set as the objective function and carbon emissions per unit of gross production value was set as the constraint, this paper simulated and optimized the cropping structure in HLRA. The results showed that there was a "stable-growing-declining" trend in the total carbon emissions and carbon uptake of the planting production system in HLRA, with total carbon emissions of 2.84x1010 kg and total carbon uptake of 7.49x1010 kg in 2017. In the past 18 years, carbon emissions per unit area and carbon emissions per unit of gross production had both shown a decreasing trend. To achieve further efficiency gains and emission reductions in the planting production system, it was recommended that the local governments strengthen the comprehensive use of straw resources, optimize irrigation and fertilization techniques, and adjust the cropping structure, i.e., increase the planting area of maize and soybeans and reduce the planting area of rice, and increase subsidies to protect the economic returns of planters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Characterizing the carbon footprint (CF) of agricultural production offers key information for pursuing low carbon agriculture and food consumption. While China has long strived for increasing food production capacity for its large and still growing population, the high emissions cost, especially from the over use of agro-chemicals, has been widely debated for the last decade. However, the CF of China''s crop production has not yet been assessed. This paper reports a basic estimate of CF of crop production using national statistical data available for the period of 1993–2007. The dataset includes the amount of individual agricultural inputs (fertilizer, pesticide, diesel, plastic film, etc.), cultivation area and total of production whole crops. Using the emission factors estimated for China''s agricultural features and available abroad, the mean overall CF of China''s crop production was estimated to be 0.78±0.08tCEha−1 yr−1 and 0.11±0.01tCEt−1 yr−1, for land use and bulk production respectively. For the duration the data covered, the carbon intensity under cultivation land use was seen to increase since 1993. Among the total, fertilizer induced emissions exerted the largest contribution of ∼60%, being 0.45±0.04tCE per ha and 0.07±0.01tCE per ton of production, on average. Compared to the UK, the estimated overall CF of China''s crop production was higher in terms of cultivation land use. While there was a significant positive correlation of carbon intensity with total production, carbon efficiency was shown in a decreasing trend during 2003-2007. Therefore, low carbon agriculture should be pursued, and the priority should be given to reducing fertilizer application in agriculture of China. However, for developing best management practices for climate change mitigation in crop production of China, further studies of crop and regional specific CFs and the variation with climate conditions and agricultural managements are needed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Greenhouse gas emissions related to food production in selected countries around the world in 2000, 2007, and 2014 were analyzed in this paper. In recent decades, many studies have suggested that greenhouse gas emissions mostly caused by agricultural production should be reduced. However, a low-carbon agricultural sector often involves a reduction in inputs, which may result in smaller production volumes. Nevertheless, the overarching goal should be to maintain food production at a sufficient level to meet the population's food requirements. Food production is particularly important in the context of the forecasted growth of the world population. In this situation, greenhouse gas emissions per product unit should be regarded as a key indicator that reflects the environmental sustainability level of production processes. Defined as such, environmental sustainability was examined across the entire food production system—referred to as agribusiness. This study calculated the emissions of major greenhouse gases related to food production and compared them to the GDP of agribusiness. The average ratio of the agribusiness carbon footprint to GDP in countries examined was nearly 2 kg of CO 2 equivalent/USD in 2000. This value kept decreasing during the study period, reaching 1.21 in 2014. A decrease in the ratio was recorded despite an increase in agribusiness greenhouse gas emissions, which validated the research hypothesis that an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from agribusiness does not necessarily reflect a decline in the environmental performance of agribusiness production. This is especially true for China and Brazil, whose greenhouse gas emissions related to food production increased considerably in the years examined in this study along with a clear decline in emission levels per unit of agribusiness GDP. This study is innovative, because the literature does not provide any similar calculations for the food production subsystem, especially regarding emission levels per production unit. This approach required the authors to integrate the calculation methods used in agribusiness production with those applicable to agribusiness greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, this study relied on consistent methods developed by the authors to calculate these values. The research adds to existing literature by calculating the carbon footprint for the entire food production system, and it argues that better environmental performance of agribusiness production can be achieved despite higher greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]