Transforming agrifood systems in a win–win for health and environment: evidence from organic rice–duck coculture

Abstract

BACKGROUND Rice–duck coculture is an ecological agricultural mode; however, the nutritional and environmental benefits of transforming from conventional rice monoculture to rice–duck coculture are unknown. Based on survey data and the life‐cycle assessment approach, this study conducted a carbon footprint evaluation of conventional rice monoculture (CR), organic rice monoculture (OR), and organic rice–duck coculture (ORD) using different functional units. RESULTS The carbon footprint per hectare of ORD (7842 ± 284 kg CO2eq ha−1) was slightly lower than that of CR (7905 ± 412 kg CO2eq ha−1), while higher than that of OR (7786 ± 235 kg CO2eq ha−1). Although the rice yield of ORD was slightly lower than that of CR, its nutrient density unit (NDU) did not decrease significantly due to the additional duck yield. Thus, the carbon footprint per NDU of ORD was significantly lower than that of OR by 24.3% (P < 0.05) and was 5.8% higher than that of CR, but this was not statistically significant. Due to the higher economic profits of ORD, its unit of carbon footprint per economic profit was significantly reduced (by 47.1–75.7%) compared with the other two farming modes, while the net ecosystem economic budget was significantly increased by 98.5–341.9% (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION Transforming from a rice monoculture to a coculture system will contribute to a win–win situation for human health and environmental sustainability. This study highlighted the abundant nutritional output function of the rice–duck coculture and analyzed the urgency and necessity of transitioning from traditional agriculture to ecological agriculture from the production and consumption perspectives. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Analysis of low-carbon rice farming behavior and its influencing factors in farmers under the distributed cognition perspective—empirical study based on 2,173 farmers in Jiangxi Province

“…Simultaneously, its high carbon emissions and excessive pollution exert significant strain on the environment, which is not beneficial to sustainable agriculture development (Poulton et al, 2016;Liang et al, 2021;Gangopadhyay et al, 2022;Wu et al, 2022). Current academic research on LCRF technology focuses primarily on enhancing soil organic carbon accumulation (Xia et al, 2020;Wei et al, 2021;Tang et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022b), enhancing agricultural material utilization efficiency (Memon et al, 2018;Yadav et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020aZhang et al, , 2020b, and promoting carbon biocycling (Dai et al, 2022;Sultana et al, 2022;Gao et al, 2023). Based on a theoretical study of LCRF technology, this research lists the seven typical categories of LCRF behaviors based on regional rice farming features and empirical evidence.…”

Effects of long‐term different‐scale rice–duck farming on the growth and yield of paddy rice

“…[7][8][9] Many researchers have done a lot of research on greenhouse gas emissions, soil fertility effect, rice growth characteristics, and ecological and economic benefits in RD farming. 4,[10][11][12][13][14][15] Numerous studies have demonstrated that RD farming can significantly reduce methane emissions from paddy fields compared with conventional rice farming. 7,12,16,17 This may be because activities of ducks increase the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the water body and, thus, methane produced in the soil can be oxidized more quickly, 11,18 helping to slow global warming.…”

“…Many researchers have done a lot of research on greenhouse gas emissions, soil fertility effect, rice growth characteristics, and ecological and economic benefits in RD farming 4,10‐15 . Numerous studies have demonstrated that RD farming can significantly reduce methane emissions from paddy fields compared with conventional rice farming 7,12,16,17 .…”