Climate-smart planting for potato to balance economic return and environmental impact across China

Yang Li; Jing Wang; Renwei Chen; Enli Wang; Bin Wang; Qiang Yu; Qi Hu; Zhihua Pan; Xuebiao Pan

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158013

Climate-smart planting for potato to balance economic return and environmental impact across China

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Dec 1:850:158013. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158013. Epub 2022 Aug 12.

Authors

Yang Li¹, Jing Wang², Renwei Chen¹, Enli Wang³, Bin Wang⁴, Qiang Yu⁵, Qi Hu¹, Zhihua Pan¹, Xuebiao Pan¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China.
² College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: wangj@cau.edu.cn.
³ CSIRO Agriculture and Food, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
⁴ NSW Department of Primary Industries, Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute, NSW 2650, Australia.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Shaanxi 712100, China.

PMID: 35970467
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.158013

Abstract

Potato production plays an important role in safeguarding food security in China since the central government implemented the 'Potato-as-Staple-Food' policy in 2015. However, a key challenge facing China's potato production is to realize a tradeoff between economic return and environmental impact. Effective strategies for reducing carbon emission without compromising potato yield remain to be developed. This study conducted a comprehensive assessment by integrating climate, soil, crop, and agricultural input data, crop model and life cycle impact assessment model to quantify potato yields, GHG emission amounts and intensities (GHGI), and economic benefits under the conventional planting pattern (CPP), the lowest GHG emission pattern (LEP), and the highest yield pattern (HYP) across China's potato planting regions including four sub-regions, i.e., North Single planting region (NS), Central Double planting region (CD), South Winter planting region (SW), and Southwest Mixed planting region (SWM). Averaged fresh potato yield, GHG emission amount, and GHGI under the CPP were 21.7 t ha^-1, 2815.1 kg CO₂eq ha^-1, and 137.3 kg CO₂eq t^-1, respectively, in China's potato planting region. Compared with the CPP, averaged GHG emission amount and GHGI under the LEP could be decreased by 48.2 % and 51.5 % respectively while the fresh potato yield and economic benefit could be enhanced by 8.1 % and 18.5 %, respectively. For the HYP, averaged GHG emission amount and GHGI could be decreased by 24.2 % and 39.8 % respectively while the fresh potato yield and economic benefit could be enhanced by 18.7 % and 39.6 %, respectively, compared with the CPP. Across the four potato planting regions, SW had the largest potential in reducing GHG emissions owing to a high reduction amount of nitrogen application rate. Our study demonstrates that optimizing agronomic management could reduce environmental impact without compromising economic benefit and provides a scientific method for assessing crop potential to realize the climate-smart planting.

Keywords: Agronomic management; Crop model; Economic benefit; GHG emission; Life cycle assessment model; Yield.

MeSH terms

Agriculture / methods
Carbon
China
Fertilizers
Nitrogen
Soil
Solanum tuberosum*

Substances

Fertilizers
Soil
Carbon
Nitrogen