Greenhouse gas emissions mitigation towards low carbon agriculture in Thailand (Year 2)

Moving towards the targets of carbon neutrality and net zero emissions are being mobilized aggressively. Related policies and measures have been implemented through governmental agencies as well as private enterprises at both national and international levels.  To reach the targets, economy-wide contributions of various sectors including agriculture are crucial.

Agriculture is one of the main socioeconomic sectors, as majority of the population and country areas are included in this sector.  Agriculture also contributes significantly for the provision of raw materials to industry, manufacture, and production of bioenergy.  Greenhouse gas emission reduction in agriculture sector, therefore, has the immense impacts on carbon footprint of all downstream process and products of the respective industries. Our study in the past indicates that greenhouse gas emission during the production of raw materials in agricultural fields contributes more than 70% of a product.  However, options and measures for reducing the emission of many economic crops are still lacking.  Before emission reduction is made, it is necessary to know the baseline emission, then the measures to reduce emission are identified and its mitigation potentials evaluated, reasonable target set and finally those measures and options are implemented at farmer’s farm scale. The effectiveness of these arrays of tasks is then evaluated to make sure that the emission reduction is achieved. 

The current research program is planned to continue after the plans in the first year in 2022.  With the nature of cropping cycle and its differences among type of crops that some crops have the duration of growth through the entire year or longer, this research program is designed to cover the during of 3 years.  This is to facilitate data collection and analysis that cover the whole cropping during, and to ensure that the results are reproducible and accurate.  This research consists of two sub-projects as follows; 1) Reducing the carbon footprint of sugar industrial supply chains in the stage of cane plantation by biochar application along circular economy strategy for sustainable greenhouse gas mitigation and 2) Reducing the carbon footprint of rice cultivation at the sub-district level through the verification of the greenhouse gas emission assessment by using the SMART GHG application.  The first year will be started on 1 October 2022.  During the 1^st-2^nd years, majority of the research activities will be focused on field surveys and data collection, field measurements of greenhouse gas emission and the development of site-specific emission factors in rice and sugarcane cultivation.  During the 2^nd-3^rd years, in addition to continuous measurements of the emission and the development of emission factor, the test on mitigation measures in the fields, the analysis of emission mitigation potential, and the carbon footprint values will be carried out.

At the completion of the project, it is expected that at last 2 publication per year will be published in the international journal (totally at least 6 publication is foreseen).  The emission factors for CH4 and N2O that reflects the local circumstances will be provided, and the networks of farmers with the members enhanced their understanding on cultivation practices in line with minimized greenhouse gas emission and on the role of cropping activities in supporting carbon neutrality and net zero emission will be achieved.