A framework for assessing the energy efficiency of non-mechanised agricultural systems in developing countries

Abstract

There is a continuously growing global demand for agricultural products, including food, fodder and fuels that urges for reasons of ensuring a sustainable development innovative methods to assess the impact of agricultural management. Existing methods of energy efficiency analysis for agricultural systems take into account human labour and draft animal power as inputs and consider also land-use characteristics as factors affecting the production in systems in most developing African countries. However, most of these methods fail to address properly different scales in decision making, i.e. connecting the management planning level with regional development considerations. With this paper, we introduce an alternative method to assess the energy efficiency in agronomic land-use. Our work intends to conceive a comprehensive and scale sensitive assessment framework that supports consulting land-use, decision making, and policy planning.