Abstract:
A study was conducted to determine the energy inputs, energy outputs and
energy indices in the Kuttanad region on Punja session of 2016-17. Seven hundred
and thirty one farmers were selected for the different agro-ecological zones of
Kuttanad for the study. The results shows that total input and output energy in the
Kuttanad region were about 27305.87 and 114346.90 MJhaˉ1 respectively. The
energy pattern consists of 43 per cent fertilizers, 18 per cent electricity, 17 per cent
human labour, 11 per cent fuel, 7 per cent seed, 2 per cent machinery, and 1 per cent
plant protection chemicals. The specific energy, net energy, energy efficiency and
energy productivity in this region was 5.09 MJkgˉ1, 87020.97 MJhaˉ1, 4.20 and 0.19
kgMJˉ1 respectively.
ANN modeling is done on the data collected to find out the changes occurring
in zone wise and farm size wise and find out that all the models performed relatively
well in all the regions compared to the training and testing data sets, with relatively
less variability in RMSE. Model performance was best for Kayal region with very
less variability in large holding and
marginal holdings group, while models
performed well for Vaikom Kari in medium and small holdings. The performance of
the models in the remaining four regions is similar in all the holdings. The r-square
performance measure for different regions showed that Northern Kuttanad, Purakad
Kari and Upper Kuttanad performed well in large holding farms with majority of the
simulations having r 2 closer to 1. While Kayal and Vaikom Kari had relatively less
RMSE in large land holdings, the variability in r-square was found to be more.
However, performance was good with less variability for both Kayal and Vaikom
Kari for marginal and medium land holdings respectively. In small land holdings,
models performed well in Purakad Kari region with r-square close to one.
The results showed that the input energy for fertilizer is higher in the
Kuttanad region. This higher input was because of the farmers practice to use high
rate of fertilizer application above the PoP recommendation. By using recommended
amount of fertilizer, the energy consumption and cost of production can be reduced.
The second highest energy input, the electricity which can be reduced by using more
efficient pump for water management.
The introduction of power drum seeder will
reduce the human energy input and the high cost associated with it.
