Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
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Industrial Crops & Products
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop
Economic and environmental assessment of tobacco production in
Northern Iran
Seyyed Reza Mirkarimi , Zahra Ardakani *, Reza Rostamian
Department of Agricultural Economic, Qaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qaemshahr, Iran
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Benefit to cost ratio
Cropping system
Economic efficiency
Life cycle assessment
Tobacco
Environmental and economic aspects of a production system are two main pillars to study the sustainability of
the system. In this regard, the purpose of this study was the economic and environmental assessment of tobacco
(Nicotiana tabacum) production in rainfed and irrigated systems in northern Iran. The data were collected from
133 rainfed and 176 irrigated tobacco farms in three provinces of Mazandaran, Golestan, and Guilan in Iran. The
standard method of life cycle assessment (LCA) provided by ISO 14040-44 was used to study the environmental
impacts. Four economic indices, including gross income, net income, benefit to cost ratio, and economic pro­
ductivity, were examined for the economic analysis of the cropping systems. In the study of environmental
impacts, the average value of global warming input was 2624.11 kgCO2eq. The comparison of rainfed and irri­
gated systems revealed that the rainfed system in all impact categories had the highest environmental impact.
Moreover, emissions from on-site operations and the use of two inputs of natural gas and chemical fertilizers had
the highest effect on characterization indices. The results also showed that tobacco production had the highest
adverse effects on resources and a significant amount of fossil fuels used in the production process had the largest
share in increasing this damage group. Economic analysis also highlighted that the average net income and
benefit to cost ratio were 6646.86 $ ha− 1 and 2.27. The irrigated system had higher values of the indices than the
rainfed system, indicating the higher profitability of the irrigated production system.
1. Introduction
environment (Taheri-Rad et al., 2017).
Tobacco is the most critical non-edible agricultural product world­
wide (Poltronieri, 2016). Tobacco production also has a particular sit­
uation in Iran, which is cultivated on a large scale in Iranian farms,
especially in the northern provinces of Iran. The area under cultivation
and the production of this crop in Iran are 9500 ha and 19,200 tons per
hectare, respectively. The three provinces of Mazandaran, Golestan, and
Guilan, with a total cultivated area of 3200 ha, produce about 25 % of
total tobacco production in Iran (Ministry of Agriculture of Iran, 2019).
Due to the economic dependence of the tobacco producers on the in­
come from the crop, improving the production of the crop is of great
importance. Therefore, the consumption of chemical and energy inputs
have been growing significantly, which can cause significant environ­
mental issues. Since optimizing inputs consumption plays a crucial role
in improving the sustainability of agro-systems, it is necessary to pay
enough attention to the amount of inputs consumed in the systems and
the environmental issues arisen from them (Nabavi-Pelesaraei et al.,
2016). Despite the importance of the concern, just a few studies have
focused on environmental and economic analysis of tobacco production.
In recent years, due to the increasing nutritional needs of the world’s
growing population, sustainable agriculture has become an important
concept worldwide. Sustainable agriculture was introduced to increase
economic productivity along with tackling various challenges such as
environmental pollution and overuse of inputs in agricultural produc­
tion (Velten et al., 2015). In this regard, due to the increasing concerns
about greenhouse gas emissions, all countries have tried to reduce
agricultural inputs consumption as much as possible (Nikkhah et al.,
2015). Various studies have also stated the share of 14–21 percent of
greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices (Chefurka, 2011;
Amiri et al., 2019; Mirhaji et al., 2012). In recent years in developed
countries, increase awareness to environmental issues has led to pro­
ducing and consuming more environmentally friendly products, and
agricultural sector has also followed the same procedure to pay more
attention to clean production (Khoshnevisan et al., 2015). Therefore,
attention to the environment has become one of the pillars of global
policies and requires many production activities to adapt to the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: reza.mirkarimi@qaemiau.ac.ir (S.R. Mirkarimi), ardakani.z@qaemiau.ac.ir (Z. Ardakani), rezarostamian74@gmail.com (R. Rostamian).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2020.113171
Received 3 September 2020; Received in revised form 22 November 2020; Accepted 29 November 2020
Available online 13 December 2020
0926-6690/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
S.R. Mirkarimi et al.
Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
Abbasi-Rostami et al. (2017) examined the sustainability of the tobacco
cropping system in Golestan province, Iran. According to the results, the
most critical factors affecting the sustainability of the tobacco cropping
system were the support services and educational services. Another
research that assessed the environmental impacts of biodiesel produc­
tion from seed tobacco revealed that in all stages, fertilizer and energy
consumption had the largest share in terms of environmental impacts
(Carvalho et al., 2019). In Another study, conventional Virginia, organic
Virginia, and Burley tobacco production in Brazil were compared (Zappe
et al., 2020). The results showed that the latter system had lowest CO2
emissions, and the most environmental impacts in all three systems
belonged to the human health damage category. Nikkhah et al. (2019) in
a study on the tobacco production systems in Guilan province, Iran,
stated that the fossil resources and terrestrial eutrophication impact
categories had the highest environmental impacts, respectively. More­
over, the assessment of tobacco environmental footprint presented that
the production of 6 trillion cigarette sticks needs around 32.4 Mt of
green tobacco leaf that emits about 84 Mt CO2eq emissions, wastes 55 Mt
water and produces 25 Mt solid waste (Zafeiridou et al., 2018).
The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology in the agricultural
sector has been considered by many researchers, recently (Charles et al.,
2006; Shi et al., 2019; Esmaeilzadeh et al., 2019). In a study comparing
the environmental impacts of barley production in rainfed and irrigated
systems, it was stated that irrigated systems had more environmental
impacts than rainfed systems. Electricity also had the highest impact on
the abiotic depletion potential, freshwater, and marine aquatic ecotox­
icity potential and human toxicity potential (Houshyar, 2017). Also,
evaluation of the environmental impacts of the oilseeds production in
Iran by the LCA method revealed that fertilizers, manure, diesel com­
bustion, agricultural operations, and electricity required for irrigation
had the highest effects on the production process of these products
(Dekamin et al., 2018). In another study, LCA of the strawberry pro­
duction in Spain indicated that fertilizer input had the highest envi­
ronmental impact among the inputs and the groups of acidification,
eutrophication, and ecotoxicity had the highest impacts on the pro­
duction process (Romero-Gámez and Suárez-Rey, 2020). One the other
hand, the importance of improving the economic aspects of production
along with environmental issues has led to various studies to examine
both the economic and environmental aspects of agricultural produc­
tion. Many of these studies examined energy consumption as the envi­
ronmental index in addition to economic indices in the production
process (Mousavi-Avval et al., 2011; Hemmati et al., 2013; Beigi et al.,
2016; Esmailpour-Troujeni et al., 2018). But in other studies, the LCA
method was employed to calculate the environmental impacts of a
cropping system. A study on energy consumption, economic efficiency,
and greenhouse gas emissions in olive production in Iran revealed that
the effect of human labor, manure, and electricity on olive yield and the
effect of electricity and chemical fertilizers on greenhouse gas emissions
were significantly positive (Rajaeifar et al., 2014). In another study, the
canola production process in Iran was optimized using economic
indices, and environmental impacts using the Multi-Objective Genetic
Algorithm (Mousavi-Avval et al., 2017). In another study, economic and
environmental assessment of various Mediterranean wheat production
systems in semi-arid climates indicated that from an economic and
environmental point of view, the use of conservation farming systems in
the long term could have higher benefits than the conventional pro­
duction system (Falcone et al., 2019).
The importance of tobacco production as one of the most important
crops produced in northern Iran on the one hand and the need to pay
attention to environmental issues in line with economic productivity, on
the other hand led to this study to assess the environmental and eco­
nomic assessment of tobacco production in northern Iran. According to
previous studies, despite the great importance of tobacco in the country
and the world, there is no significant focus on the analysis of the pro­
duction process of the crop from an environmental and economic
perspective. Also, considering that the crop is cultivated in both rainfed
and irrigated systems in northern Iran, the environmental impacts and
economic indices of tobacco production in this region should be evalu­
ated based on the type of cropping system. Therefore, the purpose of this
study was the economic and environmental assessment of tobacco pro­
duction in northern Iran in both rainfed and irrigated cropping systems.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study site
The present research was conducted in three Northern provinces of
Iran, including Mazandaran, Golestan, and Guilan. Due to the favorable
climatic conditions, these areas are the leading regions of tobacco pro­
duction in Iran. Tobacco is cultivated in these areas in both rainfed and
irrigated cropping systems, where the rainfed system with 2520 ha is
more than irrigated systems with 1200 ha. The statistical population in
this study included all tobacco producers in these three provinces. Based
on the Krejcie-Morgan sample size table (Krejcie and Morgan, 1970), the
number of samples were selected to be 133 for the rainfed system and
176 for the irrigated system. In order to the economic and environ­
mental assessment of tobacco production in Iran, with a cradle to gate
perspective, all production processes including raw material extraction
and production, use, the supply of inputs to the farm, crop trans­
portation to the drying site, and drying process were considered. The
inputs used in the tobacco production process in both rainfed and irri­
gated cropping systems were diesel fuel, gasoline, natural gas, elec­
tricity, biocides, and chemical fertilizers (Table 1).
2.2. Environmental analysis
The standardized LCA method provided by ISO 14040-44 (2006) was
applied to investigate the environmental effects of tobacco production in
northern Iran. This process includes four steps of goal definition, life
cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, and interpretation of re­
sults (Nikkhah et al., 2018).
In the first step, the goal of this study, functional unit and system
boundaries should be defined. The aim of this study was to evaluate the
environmental impacts of tobacco production in rainfed and irrigated
cropping systems in northern Iran. The functional unit was considered to
be the one ton of dried tobacco. The system boundary also included all
the inputs used in the on-farm production process, the transfer to the
drying sites, and the tobacco drying process. Fig. 1 depicts the system
boundary to assess the life cycle of tobacco production in northern Iran.
In the second step, a life cycle inventory was prepared, which refers
to the determination of inputs and outputs for each system (Firouzi
et al., 2017). Environmental impacts from cradle to grave of agricultural
cropping systems can be divided into two categories: first, background
(off-farm) which refer to pollutants emitted from the production of
material inputs. Second, foreground emissions (on-farm) refer to direct
emissions from inputs consumption (Paramesh et al., 2018). In the
present research, Ecoinvent 3.0 database was considered to evaluate the
background emissions of tobacco production in northern Iran. More­
over, in order to evaluate the emissions from tobacco production and
drying, the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen monoxide,
ammonia, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide were calculated.
In the third step (life cycle impact assessment), the amount of each
pollutant is determined and then the values of classification, normali­
zation, and weighing indices are calculated. In this study, the IMPACT
2002+ method, which is a combination of different methods including
IMPACT 20 02, Eco-Indicator 99, CML, and IPCC methods, was used to
cover a broader range of impacts and damage groups (Paramesh et al.,
2018). In order to assess the life cycle of tobacco production, 15 impact
categories including Carcinogens, Non-carcinogens, Respiratory in­
organics, Ionizing radiation, Ozone layer depletion, Respiratory or­
ganics, Aquatic ecotoxicity, Terrestrial ecotoxicity, Terrestrial
acid/nutria, Land occupation, Aquatic acidification, Aquatic
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S.R. Mirkarimi et al.
Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
Table 1
Input values for tobacco production in the north of Iran.
Inputs and Output (unit)
For one ton
Inputs
1.Diesel fuel (L)
2. Biocides (kg)
3.Fertilizers (kg)
(a) Nitrogen
(b) Phosphate
(c) Potassium
4. Gasoline (L)
5.Electricity (kWh)
6. Natural gas (m3)
7.Human labor (h)
8.Agricultural machinery (h)
9.Water for irrigation (m3)
10.Seed (kg)
Output
1.Tobacco (kg)
For one hectare
Average
Rainfed
Irrigated
Average
Rainfed
Irrigated
197.87
3.89
196.91
54.86
49.40
92.64
66.54
823.43
860.41
57.71
2.26
124.53
61.41
92.55
5.70
260.26
69.34
59.58
131.34
92.55
935.82
1020.95
79.48
3.46
37.75
97.07
48.71
2.47
126.80
43.38
33.88
49.55
48.71
679.92
684.99
42.49
1.84
178.46
47.56
306.52
5.87
286.04
83.03
79.37
123.64
107.70
1531.20
1576.52
92.50
4.51
254.16
122.50
323.55
6.38
282.82
75.32
68.62
138.88
101.17
1154.45
1249.06
89.53
4.45
549.93
125.05
286.66
5.15
235.81
84.20
70.02
81.58
112.67
1703.04
1714.07
94.41
4.66
386.03
120.45
1000
1000
1000
1994.88
1287.79
2532.86
Fig. 1. System boundary of tobacco production in northern Iran.
eutrophication, Global warming, Non-renewable energy, and Mineral
extraction were considered. Four damage categories of human health,
climate change, ecosystem quality, and resources were also considered
to investigate the destructive environmental impacts of tobacco pro­
duction. SimaPro 9 software was employed to analyze the LCA. Finally,
the results were interpreted and reported with the aim of determining
the environmental impacts of tobacco production in northern Iran
(fourth step).
)
(
Gross income = Total production value $ ha− 1
−
Variable production cost ($ ha− 1 )
(
)
Net income = Total production value $ ha-1
− Total production cost ($ ha-1 )
Benefit to cost ratio =
Total production value ($ ha− 1 )
Total production cost ($ ha− 1 )
2.3. Economic analysis
Economic productivity =
In order to the economic analysis of tobacco production in northern
Iran, fixed, variable, and total production costs per unit area were
determined based on the inputs consumption in both rainfed and irri­
gated systems. The values of economic indices were also calculated to
compare the economic performance of both rainfed and irrigated crop­
ping systems. The economic indices studied included total production
value, gross income, net income, benefit to cost ratio, and economic
productivity, which were estimated according to Eqs. (1)–(5) (Sahabi
et al., 2016; Mohammadshirazi and Kalhor, 2016).
(
)
Total production value = Tobacco yield kg ha− 1
× Tobacco price ($ kg− 1 )
Tobaccoyield (kg ha− 1 )
Total production cost ($ ha− 1 )
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Environmental analysis results
A summary of the characterization indices for tobacco production in
the rainfed and irrigated systems is presented in Table 2. According to
the table, on average, the value of global warming index for tobacco
production was determined to be 2624.11 kgCO2eq. The global warming
characterization index for one ton production of tobacco in Guilan
province of Iran was reported to be 1883.90 kgCO2eq (Nikkhah et al.,
(1)
3
S.R. Mirkarimi et al.
Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
(Özilgen, 2017). In general, on-site operations and the use of two inputs
of natural gas and chemical fertilizers had the highest impact on char­
acterization indices.
After calculating the environmental impacts of tobacco production in
four damage groups of human health, ecosystem quality, climate
change, and resources, these values were normalized and weighed.
Finally, the share of inputs in tobacco production in each damage
category was shown in Fig. 3. The results revealed that in general,
natural gas had the most detrimental effect on the total destructive
impacts of the environment in the tobacco production process. This
input had the highest negative impact on the resource damage category.
After that, emissions from the on-site operation and tobacco drying had
the most negative impacts, which had the highest effect on the human
health and climate change damage categories. In addition, chemical
fertilizers, especially nitrogen, had significant adverse impact on all four
damage categories, especially human health and ecosystem quality.
Next, electricity input had the largest share in the environmental im­
pacts on three damage categories of human health, climate change, and
resources.
The values of environmental impacts for both rainfed and irrigated
cropping systems and average production are presented in Fig. 4. The
results revealed that the resource damage category had the highest
negative effects during tobacco production in northern Iran. The sig­
nificant use of fossil fuels, including diesel, gasoline, natural gas, and
electricity generated from fossil resources, played the main role in
increasing the impacts of the damage category. Therefore, optimizing
the consumption of non-renewable energy resources and replacing
renewable energy resources can reduce the negative effect of this
damage category in tobacco production. The damage category of human
health was ranked second in terms of negative impacts on environment
in the tobacco production process. In the category, emissions from onsite operations were the hotspot in increasing the negative effects of
the group. Similar results were found in the study conducted by Para­
mesh et al. (2018). The human health damage category was accounted
for the highest negative impacts in tobacco production in Brazil followed
by ecosystem quality and resources categories (Zappe et al., 2020). The
climate change damage category had the third rank in terms of the
negative environmental effects of tobacco production. The use of bio­
cides and chemical fertilizers were the most important factor in
increasing the destructive effects of the category. A study examining the
environmental impact of tobacco cultivation in biodiesel produced from
seed tobacco revealed that chemical fertilizers and biocides had the
highest impact on the climate change damage category (Carvalho et al.,
2019). Finally, the least adverse environmental effects were related to
the damage category of ecosystem quality.
Table 2
Characterization indices for tobacco production in the north of Iran.
Impact category
Unit
Average
Rainfed
Irrigated
Carcinogens
Non-carcinogens
Respiratory inorganics
Ionizing radiation
Ozone layer depletion
Respiratory organics
Aquatic ecotoxicity
Terrestrial ecotoxicity
Terrestrial acid/nutria
Land occupation
Aquatic acidification
Aquatic eutrophication
Global warming
Non-renewable energy
Mineral extraction
kg C2H3Cl eq
kg C2H3Cl eq
kg PM2.5 eq
Bq C-14 eq
kg CFC-11 eq
kg C2H4 eq
kg TEG water
kg TEG soil
kg SO2 eq
m2org.arable
kg SO2 eq
kg PO4 P-lim
kg CO2 eq
MJ primary
MJ surplus
188.5025
86.5856
3.527056
21356.1
0.000578
1.125163
421238.7
97942.04
162.0514
266.4782
26.73184
0.699039
2624.114
71879.36
100.7616
227.3394
113.7897
4.075339
28515.03
0.000756
1.409588
543974.7
129738.2
188.276
359.8914
31.83335
0.903646
3402.382
89895.25
127.9185
147.5833
57.27358
2.245152
14846.21
0.000424
0.852283
297531.3
66360.39
106.2348
168.3788
18.0277
0.485447
1939.531
54853.28
75.77302
2019). Zafeiridou et al. (2018) also stated that the total emission from
air to produce 32.4 Mt green tobacco leaf or 6.48 dried tobacco leaf in
cultivation and curing stages were 65.52 kgCO2eq. This index for one ton
production of wheat in Gorgan city and peanut in Guilan province was
reported to be 620 kgCO2eq (Soltani et al., 2010) and 312.2 kgCO2eq
(Nikkhah et al., 2015). Moreover, the terrestrial acid/nutria index for
tobacco production was determined to be 162.05 kg SO2eq. The index
attended to atmospheric deposition of inorganic substances (Hasler
et al., 2015) that application of chemical fertilizers could be the main
reason of increasing the terrestrial acid/nutria index due to releasing
NH3, SO2, and NOx into the soil (Zappe et al., 2020). The results also
demonstrated that in general, the rainfed system in all impact categories
had the highest amount of environmental impacts, which was in line
with the results reported by Taki et al. (2018) in comparison of rainfed
and irrigated wheat cropping systems. They stated that the reason was
the much lower wheat yield in the rainfed cropping system. According to
Table 1, in this study, the tobacco yield in the rainfed system with
1287.79 kg ha− 1 was around half of that in the irrigated system with
2532.86 kg ha− 1, which can confirm this result.
The share of inputs in the environmental effects of the tobacco
cropping systems is also depicted in Fig. 2. The results indicated that in
both rainfed and irrigated systems and on average, emissions from onsite operations had the highest impacts on global warming potential,
as well as impact categories of respiratory inorganics, terrestrial eco­
toxicity, and aquatic acidification, which are similar to the results re­
ported by Paramesh et al. (2018). Natural gas also was the hotspot in
terms of non-renewable energy consumption, carcinogens, ozone layer
depletion, and respiratory organics. This input is used in the tobacco
production process in the drying operation. If dryers that use renewable
energy resources or have a higher drying efficiency can be used for this
purpose, the environmental impacts of consuming natural gas input can
be significantly reduced. Chemical fertilizers also had a significant effect
on characterization indices. So that the total consumption of chemical
fertilizers including nitrogen, potassium, and phosphate fertilizers, after
on-site emissions, had the second-highest impact on the global warming
potential, among which nitrogen fertilizer was the hotspot in the group.
Zippe et al. (2020) also stated that the impact categories in the tobacco
production systems in Brazil were influenced by fertilizers production
and application. Pishgar-Komleh et al. (2012) stated that the highest
greenhouse gas emissions in potato production after fossil fuel belonged
to chemical fertilizers with 325 kgCO2eq ha-1. Also, nitrogen fertilizer
had the highest impact on the three indices of ionizing radiation, aquatic
ectoxicity, and mineral extraction. Potassium fertilizer also had the
highest impact on non-carcinogens, terrestrial ectoxicity, and land
occupation. Given the significant participation of chemical fertilizers in
different impact categories, it can be said that the use of microbial fer­
tilizers can be a worthy option to lessen the environmental impacts of
chemical fertilizers and sustainable production of agricultural products
3.2. Economic analysis results
Table 3 depicts the cost of inputs and economic indices of rainfed and
irrigated tobacco cropping systems. The share of inputs in the tobacco
production costs is also shown in Fig. 5. In the study of average tobacco
production, total production costs and gross income were determined to
be 5227.40 $ ha− 1 and 11874.27 $ ha− 1, respectively, which were
higher in the irrigated system than the rainfed system. In the study of
variable costs, human labor input with 1554.12 $ ha− 1 and 41.62 % had
the highest cost among consumed inputs and water for irrigation input
with 605.14 $ ha− 1 and 16.21 % was the second costly input. Electricity
and biocides followed human labor and water for irrigation inputs with
12.20 % and 11.43 %, respectively. Diesel fuel input had the lowest
share in the total production costs, with 21.89 $ ha− 1 and 0.59 %.
Although diesel fuel input ranked third among consumed inputs, it had
the lowest costs due to the low price of diesel fuel in Iran. In other studies
in the region, diesel fuel had the lowest cost among inputs (Esmail­
pour-Troujeni et al., 2018; Amoozad-Khalili et al., 2020). Comparing
two production systems also revealed that the cost of seed, biocides,
chemical fertilizers, and diesel fuel in the rainfed system was higher than
4
S.R. Mirkarimi et al.
Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
Fig. 2. Share of inputs in the environmental impact of tobacco production, (a) average, (b) rainfed system, (c) irrigated system.
5
S.R. Mirkarimi et al.
Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
two inputs of biocides and electricity with 15.35 % and 11.21 %,
respectively. But in the irrigated system, human labor input with
1589.00 $ ha− 1 and 39.06 % was the most costly input and two inputs of
water for irrigation and electricity with 22.59 % and 12.46 %, respec­
tively, ranked second and third. The seed, machinery, and fuel, with
4.91 % in the rainfed system and 3.62 % in the irrigated system,
respectively, had the lowest share in the production costs of both sys­
tems. Since most of the stages of tobacco production in northern Iran
were manual and semi-mechanized, therefore the share of the cost of
two inputs of machines and fuel in both systems was determined to be
the lowest and the share of human labor cost in both systems was ob­
tained to be the highest in the production costs.
The results highlighted that the average value of net income was
estimated at 6646.86 $ ha− 1. The average benefit to cost ratio was 2.27,
which showed that tobacco production in northern Iran was profitable.
The amount of economic productivity was also estimated at 0.382 kg
$− 1, indicating for every dollar spent, 0.382 kg of dried tobacco was
produced. The values of this index for wheat production (Sahabi et al.,
2016) and rice (Pishgar-Komleh et al., 2011) in northern Iran were re­
ported to be 5.11 kg $− 1 and 1.12 kg $− 1, respectively, indicating the
lower economic productivity of tobacco production compared to other
crops in the study area. Comparing the two cropping systems also
revealed that the net income in the irrigated system with 9381.45 $ ha− 1
was higher than the rainfed system with 3372.60 $ ha− 1 and the benefit
to cost ratio in the irrigated system with 2.65 was higher than the rainfed
system with 1.79, which indicates the superior profitability of the irri­
gated cropping system. The value of economic productivity for rainfed
and irrigated systems was calculated to be 0.299 kg $− 1 and 0.445 kg
$− 1, respectively, which revealed higher economic productivity in the
irrigated system. The index pointed out that for every dollar spent on
production, more tobacco is produced in the irrigated system.
4. Conclusion
This study was aimed to the economic and environmental assessment
of rainfed and irrigated tobacco production system in three Northern
provinces of Iran. The LCA methodology provided by ISO 14040-44 was
used to investigate the environmental impacts. The system boundary
included all inputs used in the on-farm production process, transfer to
the drying site, and the tobacco drying process. In addition, economic
indices of total production value, gross income, net income, benefit to
cost ratio, and economic productivity were examined to economic
analysis of tobacco production. In the study of environmental impacts,
the comparison of rainfed and irrigated systems highlighted that the
rainfed system had the highest environmental impact in all impact
categories due to the lower yield. Assessing the share of consumed
Fig. 3. Share of inputs in tobacco production on different damage categories,
(a) average, (b) rainfed system, and (c) irrigated system.
irrigated ones, and the cost of other inputs in the irrigated system was
higher. In general, the irrigated system had higher production costs than
the rainfed system. In the rainfed system, human labor input with
1489.72 $ ha− 1 and 48.58 % were ranked first in production costs and
Fig. 4. Single score of each damage assessment groups of tobacco production.
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Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
Table 3
Production costs and economic indices in tobacco production.
Items
A. Inputs
1.Human labor
2.Agricultural machinery
3.Diesel fuel
4.Gasoline
5.Natural gas
6.Pesticide
7.Chemical fertilizers
8.Electricity
9.Water for irrigation
10.Seed
B. Economic indices
Variable cost of production
Fixed cost of production
Total cost of production
Sale price
Gross value of production
Benefit to cost ratio
Economic productivity
Gross return
Net income
Unit
For one ton
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
1
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ ha−
$ kg−
$ ha−
–
kg $−
$ ha−
$ ha−
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
For one hectare
Average
Rainfed
Irrigated
Average
Rainfed
Irrigated
965.51
26.91
14.13
47.53
148.52
285.09
134.12
245.07
296.50
36.55
1317.48
41.14
20.91
66.11
176.24
421.38
177.65
278.52
89.89
57.78
714.53
21.90
9.21
34.80
118.24
178.47
85.41
202.36
424.91
28.31
1554.12
53.69
21.89
76.93
272.14
426.89
194.43
455.71
605.14
72.92
1489.72
52.98
23.11
72.26
215.61
470.66
193.05
343.59
130.93
74.40
1589.00
55.48
20.48
80.48
295.88
370.51
158.41
506.86
919.13
71.70
2199.94
879.98
3079.92
5.952
5952.38
1.93
0.325
3752.44
2872.47
2647.08
1058.83
3705.91
5.952
5952.38
1.61
0.270
3305.30
2246.47
1818.13
727.25
2545.38
5.952
5952.38
2.34
0.393
4134.25
3407.00
3733.86
1493.54
5227.40
5.952
11874.27
2.27
0.382
8140.41
6646.86
3066.31
1226.52
4292.84
5.952
7665.44
1.79
0.299
4599.13
3372.60
4067.90
1627.16
5695.07
5.952
15076.52
2.65
0.445
11008.61
9381.45
Fig. 5. Percentage of contribution of consumed inputs in tobacco production.
inputs also revealed that in both rainfed and irrigated systems, on-site
operations had the highest impact on global warming potential and
the impact categories of respiratory inorganics, terrestrial ecotoxicity,
and aquatic acidification that can be due to high dosages of chemical
fertilizers applied for tobacco production. Natural gas had the highest
impact on the non-renewable energy consumption and carcinogens,
ozone layer depletion and respiratory organics. The results also pointed
out that the resource damage category had the most harmful environ­
mental impacts during tobacco production. Using a significant amount
of fossil fuels, including diesel fuel, gasoline, natural gas, and electricity
generated from fossil resources, had the leading role in increasing the
environmental impacts of the damage category. In the economic study of
tobacco production, the irrigated system had the higher values of pro­
duction costs and gross income than the rainfed system. In addition, the
human labor input had the highest share in the production costs in both
systems. The economic analysis also revealed that the values of net in­
come and benefit to cost ratio in the irrigated system higher than the
rainfed system, which indicates the higher profitability of the irrigated
production system. In conclusion, according to results, in tobacco agrosystems in north of Iran, the irrigated system had the lower
environmental impacts and higher economic profitability. It can be due
to better inputs consumption management in the irrigated systems
because of gaining more yield than the rainfed systems. Moreover,
replacing natural gas and chemical fertilizers inputs with renewable
energy resources and organic fertilizers can lead to better results in
terms of environmental and economic aspects.
Funding
The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by the
Qaemshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, for funding this work.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Seyyed Reza Mirkarimi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data
curation, Writing - original draft. Zahra Ardakani: Methodology,
Software, Project administration, Supervision, Writing - review & edit­
ing. Reza Rostamian: Software, Formal analysis, Writing - review &
editing, Validation.
7
S.R. Mirkarimi et al.
Industrial Crops & Products 161 (2021) 113171
Declaration of Competing Interest
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