Introduction:
Rice has always been a staple crop in various nations worldwide, where most of the population around the world feed on it every day. Rice is also one of the top GHG contributory staple crop that exceeds that of the maize and wheat production (Linquist et al, 2012). Today, the environmental sustainability has made an impact to many sectors, especially the agricultural production. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been innovated to serve as one of the primary tools in the integral assessment for the environmental impacts of the production of various agricultural products that includes rice. The agricultural sectors have been assessed as one of the major contributors to the emission increase that includes the sectors of cattle production, agricultural soil, livestock, and rice production (US EPA,2013). This paper assesses the sustainability of the import rice to Canada from the countries China and California.
Background:
Rice is an important food that is very crucial to many countries. Canada is fond of grain-based products where major part of the population consumed products that are made up of wheat flour and rice. The consumption of rice of Canada has increased twice as much as they consume rice during the 1990s. In the year 2004, an average consumption of a single Canadian can reach to about 7.3 kg (Statistics Canada, 2005). However, Canada remains to be non-producer of rice until today. The so-called Canadian wild rice cannot be considered as true rice that is eaten in the other parts of the world. This wild rice is actually seeds of aquatic grass. Canada gets it rice from outside sources where around 70% of it comes from the US (USA Rice Federation, 2015). Canada imports more than 60% from the US, with the second largest provider of rice is Thailand, followed by Italy and China. As seen in the figure 1, the top countries US and China are among the top 10 countries that import rice to Canada (Industry Canada, 2015).
Figure 1: Top 10 countries that Import Rice to Canada (Industry Canada, 2015).
General Impact of Rice Production to the Environment
Technologies in the rice production are now taking into account the GHG emissions. In a rice production, the GHG’s released include methane (CH4),Nitrous Oxide (N2O), and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). These emissions are associated with the water usage via irrigation and flooded soils. Flooded soils create soil environmental conditions that promote production of methane. Rice seldom grows in soils that are flooded, but they mostly grown in ponded systems. The emissions in irrigation come from the water pumping system. There is high energy requirement in a groundwater extraction system that is diesel-based compared to the gravity based irrigation systems. Electricity dependent engines are also generating emissions more than the hydropower generated engines (Nelson et al, 2009). The drivers for methane production in the rice agriculture is seen in the irrigation patterns as well as in the amount of organic material found in the soil. When there is flooding, the diffusion rate of oxygen through the water is slowed down for about 10,000 times. There is also methane production in the respiration of the organic matters under the anaerobic conditions of soil. There are organic matters that are derived from the paddy fields of the rice. The Nitrous Oxide (N2O) gases are also emitted gases in the rice production. These gases are naturally released gases during the bacterial nitrification and de-nitrification processes. There are minimal amount of N2O gases released in the flooded soils because nitrogen leach through the soils (Hardy et al, nd).
China Rice Production
China is one of the world’s primary sources of rice. The high yields of China’s rice are mostly achieved through the high application of Nitrogen. In some cases, the application of nitrogen fertilizer reaches to about 300 kg/ha such as in Taihu Lake region. The application of high nitrogen fertilizers to the soil have impacts such that the nitrogen efficiency of the soil is decreased and the environmental pollution is increased (Wang et al, 2010).
The excessive Nitrogen fertilizer application strategy in Taihu Lake region in China has been assessed to have numerous environmental impacts. Nitrogen among the other constituents for the soil such as Phosphorus is important nutrients for the soil. However, they tend to accelerate the eutrophication of the streams and lakes. In the study done by Zhang et al (2003), there is an increase Phosphorus and nitrogen substances seen in the paddy soils in the Taihu Lake regions that contributed to the increase of eutrophication in the lake. There should be measures that would reduce the accumulation of these substances in the soil to minimize the eutrophication in the lake (Zhang et al, 2003). Another study made by Lin et al (2007) also stated that the urea application to rice fields in China results to losses of ammonia volatilization, some effects in the nitrogen utilization efficiency, and various rice yield effects. Excessive application of nitrogen base fertilizer decreases the ratio of the N to the seed of the plant. Furthermore, it resulted to the lodging of the rice, decrease in the utilization rate of the nitrogen in the soil, and ultimately, rice yield decrease (Lin et al, 2007).
The approaches of the studies re focused on the individual effects of the nitrogen fertilizer application, where there is a suggestion of environmental impacts in the practice of fertilizer production. There is still the effect of the productivity reduction and pollution that requires to be investigated. The agricultural sector is actually a great contributor to various environmental impacts. Doing a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the rice production in China is a good basis to cover all the related environmental impacts that affect the production system in its entirety (Wang et al,2010).
The LCA for the rice production in China involves both the energy sources from the renewable and non-renewable sectors. The fossil fuel utilization is one of the primary factors that need to be considered. The fossil fuel production due to rice production that includes the transportation reaches 3.01% and the agrochemical production of about 93.21%. The nitrogen, which is derived from the coal production of China reaches to about 91.63 MJ/KgN, which accounts to 84.51% total fossil fuel per rice ton. Water is also being depleted in the rice production through the water consumed in the nitrogen fertilizer industries, irrigation systems, and the exploitation of the raw materials. The rice production is also dominated by the emission Carbon dioxide (CO2) contributing 20.72% and methane (CH4) with about 68.35% in the entire gas emissions for every ton of rice. In figure 2, the global warming potential of rice production is presented (Wang et al,2010).
Generally, the rice production practice in China, particularly in Taihu region, has an excessive usage of the N fertilizers coupled with inappropriate management of irrigation water. In effect, there is an excessive loss of nitrogen, too much water depleted, and various pollutants are released. There is a negative environmental impact in this practice that makes it unsustainable in the long run. There is a needed corrective action in their manner of farming to eliminate the fertilizer run-off and reduce the environmental impact (Wang et al, 2010).
California Rice Production
The US is abundant with rice production where California is the second in the largest state that grows rice. Most of the rice in California is found in Sacramento Valley with conditions that are favorable for growing rice, specifically, the japonica rice.
Figure 3: US States rice producers (USA Rice Federation, nd).
The rice in California is grown in around 550,000 acres every year making it among the top 10 agricultural states that export rice. The industry of rice production in California contributes to about $1.7 billion every year to the economy of the state and the entire country. There is a conservation and sustainability program in California that makes California as a leader in the rice industry with water quality efforts, and various monitoring programs that make them an ideal agricultural model. The state attains to have 21% decrease in the land usage, 32% water reduction usage, 34% soil loss decrease, 52% energy use reduction, and 29% methane production decrease in the soil (USA Rice Federation, nd).
The rice production in California is done through continuous flooding irrigation. Flooding is an effective method since it controls weed, and minimizes the use of fertilizers and herbicides. California understands the water usage and it has achieved 40% water usage efficiency. The EPA’s “Reduced Risk” constitutes to around 25% of pesticides that greatly helps in the environment to achieve sustainability (ACC, 2015). The other practices included in the rice production in California are good practices such as incorporation of the all the straw back into the oil; there is no long term carbon sequestration practiced in their soil; Most of the water mechanisms use gravity assisted flow surface; there are excluded emissions from the farm machineries; and the milling constitutes to 10% brown rice and the white rice is about 90%. The breakdown of the of the emissions among their various processes also reveal that there is a significant control and monitoring of the greenhouse gases emitted in the air. Figure 4 shows the breakdown of these emissions (Brodt et al, nd).
Figure 4: Breakdown of Emissions by type (Brodt et al,nd).
The energy used in the rice production in California has been reduced from 29% to 22% in the last 30 years. The rice production during the 1980’s has around 29 primary energy facilities that would produce around 100 units of rice, that is equivalent to 71 units gain. In the year 2010, the net energy gain increased to 88 units (ACC, 2015).
The California rice production also promotes biomass facility that utilizes the rice hulls and makes them as renewable fuel for the production of electricity with rates of about 26.5 MW. This can produce around 200 million KWh with a given 200,000 tons of rice hill every year. The biomass facility initiated by the Wadham Energy in Williams, California utilizes the 50% of the rice hulls produced by the rice industry for electricity production that is used for the state’s rice production operations. The biomass facility is intended for higher usage of rice hulls and straw that would further be used in the California rice production. Furthermore, various milling and drying operations of rice have installed solar panels for solar energy programs for energy generation for rice operations. The solar energy source is about 25% of the electricity that is used for the milling and drying process of the California rice production. The California State plans to continue this practice and finds for further innovation of energy saving technologies (ACC, 2015). Figure 5 presents the allocation of the rice production by-products used in biomass.
Figure 5: Allocation of Emissions to Co-Products
Comparative Analysis
The rice production in China and California greatly varies in their agricultural practices. The various stages involved in the rice production in California have been undertaken by the state to be environmentally sustainable. Greenhouse gases are produced in almost all stages in the rice production. However, with the practice of the California rice production reveals that the methane emissions in California rice production is taken into account through the incorporation of the rice straw into the fields instead of burning them. Thus, there is no net increase in the impact of the greenhouse gases in the rice production per unit. The total greenhouse gases emissions derived from the cultivation of rice in California is only 0.1% in the entire greenhouse gas emitted (ACC, 2015).
The total production of rice in the various states of the US has been prepared for the possible water shortages in the future that may impede the rice production. There have been a lot of alternative methods that attains the economic and environmental efficiency for the future of rice production in the country. It can be noted in the Figure 6 that the practice in the US has the smallest rate of methane emission as compared with other rice producing countries in the world Nassau and Nefie, 2012).
Figure 6. Methane Emission Rate in Various Rice Producing Countries
The flooded rice fields are one of the significant sources of methane atmospheric emissions. According to the EPA, methane is able to trap heat in the atmosphere for 20 more times. China has a higher emission rate as compared with the US rice production. The US rice production has relatively lower methane emission that suggests that rice exportation of rice to countries like Canada would be have lesser greenhouse gas impact as compared with China being the exporting country (Nassau and Neafie, 2012).
In the consideration of rice importation for Canada, the environmental aspects are important factors in considering which source country would ultimately lead to sustainability. As presented in this paper, the rice production in China is still in the process of adapting to the changes in the many proposed best practices in agriculture. Based on the various researches presented earlier, there is mismanagement of water resource in the irrigation system of the padded rice fields. The use of nitrogen and phosphorus based fertilizers are also increasing among the many rice fields of China.
Figure 7 Chemical fertilizer use in China
China has been highly dependent on the use of chemical fertilizers on their agricultural sector particularly in the rice production. Figure 7 presents that there is an increasing pattern in the use of fertilizers in China. There is significant increase from 8.8 to 54 mmt from the early 1978 toward 2009. It reveals that there is a total increase of 5 times for the fertilizer use over a span of 31 years. Accordingly, the application of such practice among the rice fields would increase. This makes China as the world’s leading users of the chemical fertilizers (Carter et al, 2012). With the massive application of fertilizers in China coupled with inappropriate water irrigation practices, there are many fertilizer runoffs that are carried into various water bodies and lands. Along with the fertilizers, it promotes greenhouse gases emissions. With the increase of demand for rice to cover up the demand for rice in Canada would likely increase the rice cultivation in China. Likewise, the agricultural practice that has high level of emission in the atmosphere would increase. Thus, the sustainability of such activity is questionable.
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