Opporunities for reducing on-farm energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in sugarcane

Agricultural producers are currently aware of increasing energy costs associated with diesel and electricity. This has occurred at a time where the scientific and political debate on climate change is ongoing and there is conjecture on the best policy instruments to be used in response. In parallel to this discussion, the on-farm assessment of direct energy inputs (i.e. diesel and electricity) enables farmers to react positively to the potential of rising energy costs while contributing to a reduction in greenhouse gasses (GHGs) regardless of the scientific and policy debate surrounding climate change and emissions reduction. Work undertaken by the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) studied direct on-farm energy use across a number of industries and crops including sugarcane to understand the range, costs and contributions of energy use to crop production and greenhouse gas emissions. The results from this work showed that energy use varies depending on the cropping enterprise and the farming system and that there are significant opportunities to reduce energy, costs and GHG emissions (i.e. economic and environmental benefits). For sugarcane, this work has identified significant savings in energy and GHGs for both a refinement in practices (e.g. up to 30% for irrigation) and a change in practice (e.g. up to 20% in plant cane through minimum tillage) through energy assessments. This work identified that potential savings in average energy costs of $30 to $100/ha is practically achievable. It is evident that there is substantial scope to improve energy use efficiency in sugarcane production systems.