Back to Search Start Over

Rice‐Animal Co‐Culture Systems Benefit Global Sustainable Intensification

Authors :
Jinglan Cui
Hongbin Liu
Hongyuan Wang
Shuxia Wu
Muhammad Amjad Bashir
Stefan Reis
Qiaoyu Sun
Jianming Xu
Baojing Gu
Source :
Earth's Future. 11
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2023.

Abstract

Producing more food with less pollution and greenhouse gas emissions is a grand challenge for the 21st century. Strategies to successfully promote win-win outcomes for both food security and environmental health are not easy to identify. Here we comprehensively assess an ecological rice-animal co-culture system (RAC) (e.g., rice-fish, rice-duck, and rice-crayfish) through a global meta-analysis and identify the potential benefits of global promotion. Compared to traditional monoculture of rice or animal production, the RAC can not only reduce the demand for agricultural land areas, but also increase rice yields (+4%) as well as nitrogen use efficiency of rice (+6%). At the same time, RAC reduces nitrogen losses (−16% runoff and −13% leaching) and methane emissions (−11%), except for rice-fish coculture systems, which are likely to increase methane emissions (+29%). Furthermore, RAC increases the net income of farmers through reducing cost of fertilizer and pesticide input and achieving higher outputs with more marketable products. According to the development stage of different countries, promotion of RAC will thus realize multiple benefits and aid sustainable intensification.

Details

ISSN :
23284277
Volume :
11
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Earth's Future
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....1514d6deff105747f80a44515f7ffa73
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ef002984