The Economic and Bioenergy Efficiency of Use of the Biogas Plant Digestate in the Cultivation of Agricultural and Vegetable Crops in the Context of European Integration of Ukraine

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine the economic and bioenergy efficiency of bioorganic fertilizer based on digestate, taking into account the cost of basic nutrient elements. The article presents calculations of economic indicators of the examined elements of the technology of growing corn for grain and vegetable crops in Ukraine, which indicate that the cultivation of these crops is economically beneficial in all versions. The study found that increasing the economic efficiency of corn production for grain and vegetable crops when applying different norms of fertilizer application is achieved due to the more significant positive impact of yield growth compared to additional costs associated with the use of these agritechnical means, while additional costs caused by the use of fertilizers pay off many times. It is proved that the use of mineral fertilizers and their combination with high norms of bioorganic fertilizer (digestate) for corn and vegetable crops contributes to an increase in yield, and the energy efficiency of this fertilizer is quite high, which indicates the energy saving concerning the studied technology of growing crops. It is advisable to apply such fertilizer norms at which it is possible to obtain the greatest energy output at optimal costs, ensuring compliance with the priority policy of energy saving in agricultural production. The theoretical and practical provisions on the ecological problem (utilization of livestock waste, in particular in the case of pig farms), the energy problem (biogas production in a biogas plant) and the agronomic problem (obtaining organic fertilizer) have been further developed, which ensures an increase in yield and improvement of the quality of agricultural and vegetable crops, that is, makes it possible to obtain high-quality crop and vegetable products during utilization of livestock waste. The proposed approach to the economic assessment of technologies for growing corn for grain and table root crops, depending on the fertilizer application system, makes it conceivable to increase the level of productivity of agricultural and vegetable crops, provided that bioorganic fertilizers are effectively used in modern conditions of a sharp increase in the cost of mineral fertilizers. At the same time, the energy efficiency of growing corn for grain and table root crops depending on the fertilizer system has been determined, which will increase crop yields in the absence of an increase in fertilizer costs.

Economic efficiency of using digestate from biogas plants in Ukraine when growing agricultural crops as a way of achieving the goals of the European Green Deal

“…The microbiological composition of litter-free pig manure used to obtain the bioorganic digestate-based fertilizer "Efluent" (Palamarchuk and Krychkovskyi 2020) is provided in Table 1. The passage of pig manure through a biogas plant reduces the number of pathogenic microorganisms and increases the number of saprophytic organisms, which significantly improves the microbiological composition of the obtained digestate-based bioorganic fertilizer "Efluent" (Lohosha et al 2022).…”

“…When going of pig manure through a biogas plant decreases the number of pathogenic microorganisms and increases the number of saprophytic organisms, it significantly improves the microbiological composition of the "Efluent" bioorganic digestate-based fertilizer (Lohosha et al 2022).…”

“…The effectiveness of any technology for growing agricultural and vegetable crops must be confirmed by a positive result of the economic efficiency analysis (Lohosha et al 2021). The economic assessment of the technological process of production makes it possible to identify specific opportunities for improving the efficiency of its operation with the help of certain techniques and methods, which include the following: economic analysis, index method, integral method, comparison method, expert evaluation method, correlation, regression, and cluster analyses.…”

“…The availability of indicators of the economic assessment of crop cultivation makes it possible to evaluate and choose a more profitable variant of the technology and to outline the way to save resources and energy costs both in general by the technological flow and by individual components. Production methods ensuring an increase in output per unit of area under insufficient labor costs and resources are more cost-effective (Kamenshchuk 2020;Lohosha et al 2018;Kaletnik et al 2020;Tokarchuk et al 2021).…”

An advanced European overview of the bioenergy efficiency of using digestate from biogas plants when growing agricultural crops

“…The interest of farmers in using digestate is related to the lack of a sufficient amount of organic fertilizers, the high cost of mineral fertilizers, an imbalance of organic matter and a large amount of organic waste in the soil (Lohosha et al 2022).…”