Benchmarking crop systems according to energy-efficiency in the Inland Pampa (Argentina)

D.O. FERRARO

Brisbane

Congreso; 5th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture and 3rd Farming Systems Design Conference; 2011

Agroecosystem design involves the use of complementary energy sources in order to control the growth and development of undesired community components (e.g. pests and weeds) and increased the energy harvest (e.g. fertilizers). Those additional energy requirements substantially reduce the energy efficiency of agroecosystems compared with natural systems (Pimentel, 1984). Furthermore, the potential negative impact over the function and structure of agroecosystems due to this intensification usage of natural resources has led to the need for developing environmental indicators under the headings of sustainability. The intensification process of natural resource usage in modern agriculture and, particularly the higher energy-dependent production systems, has also modified the Argentinean cropping systems. One of this agroecosystem, the Inland Pampa, is a representative region for illustrate this changes due to the high change rate in land use allocation (Guerschman and Paruelo, 2005). The Inland Pampa is a sub region of a fertile plain originally covered by grasslands, which during the 1900s and 2000s was transformed into an agricultural land mosaic by grazing and farming activities. However, since 1990 the traditional mixed grazing? cropping systems were being replaced by permanent agriculture. Based on these antecedents, the aim of this work is to study changes in the energy efficiency of crops in the area of study. In order to meet this objective, a large database that includes the interval 1992-2005 was analysed using both univariate and data mining methodologies.