A New Approach to Material and Energy Flow Accounting of Agricultural Systems: A Case Study of Canola in Ardabil Province

Reducing material waste in agricultural production is one of the most important strategies to increase efficiency in the agricultural sector. Accordingly, various methods have been used to measure the economic efficiency and energy of agricultural production. However, most of these methods do not take into account the hidden costs of measuring the efficiency of the production system. Material Flow Cost accounting (MFCA) enables farmers to be aware of the amount of energy and value-added losses that results from material waste. In this study, a new approach (ISO 14,051) was used to measure the economic and energy indicators of canola production in Ardabil province. Data were obtained through face-to-face interviews with 65 farmers in the 2,018. According to the obtained results, the highest amount of input energy is related to fossil fuels and nitrogen fertilizer. Based on energy and economic indicators calculated by two methods of conventional accounting and accounting based on material flow cost accounting, it was found that the total value of canola production according to conventional accounting is equal to 59,055,260 Rials per hectare and in material flow costing is 65,694,700 Rials per hectare. However, in case of reducing material and energy waste (negative production), the benefit-cost ratio in the production process will increase by 0.12 units. Energy efficiency and specific energy were the same in the two accounting approaches because of the non-interference of output energies in their calculation. But net energy in conventional accounting differs by 9,162 megajoules from MFCA. The findings of the present study will help to better understand the issues and challenges related to reducing waste and environmental emissions and optimizing production systems as well as investing in crop production.