The energy consumption and cost-emission cycle in greenhouse tomato production, from construction to packaging

ABSTRACT

Today, investigating the trend of energy consumption, economic indices, and environmental impacts only in agricultural systems is not the way to measure the energy-economic-environmental efficiency of a product. Instead, the mentioned parameters should be evaluated in the pre-production and post-harvest sections. In this research in Isfahan province, the total energy consumption was 1,263,418.25 Megajoules per hectare, of which 8%, 91%, and 1% were related to the structure construction, production, and product packaging, respectively. The total output energy in export and second-grade tomato production was calculated as 154,840 Megajoules per hectare and 38,680 Megajoules per hectare, respectively. The economic results showed that the total consumption costs were calculated to equal 16,020 Dollars per hectare, and the cost of structure construction, the cost of producing (treasury and greenhouse), and the cost of packaging accounted for 60%, 11%, and 29%, of the total fees, respectively. The total environmental damages in the production, construction, and packaging sectors were equal to 1335.19 Pico points (representing the average impact in a specific category caused by a person during one year) per hectare; the structure construction sector had the highest amount of pollution due to the emissions caused by the production of two inputs: heating and structural steels.

KEYWORDS:

• Life cycle
• natural gas
• packaging
• treasury

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).