Department of Agricultural Economics

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Browsing Department of Agricultural Economics by Author "Barends, Vanessa"

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    Developing a suitable carbon calculator for smallholder mixed farming systems in Western Cape, South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Barends, Vanessa; Traub, Lulama; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Agrisciences. Dept. of Agricultural Economics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: With growing concerns about climate change, the measurement and monitoring of environmental impact has become a key priority. According to the World Bank, South Africa is among the top 20 global carbon dioxide emitters; and agricultural is one of the primary greenhouse gas polluters. The sector contributed approximately 21 289 tCO2 in 2000. Climate change, in turn, has had an adverse effect on agriculture by decreasing crop yields, creating food and water security concerns and decreasing sustainable agricultural land. Not only do farmers have to adapt to adverse climate conditions, but they also are expected to adhere to stringent retailer standards that often require them to measure their products’ greenhouse gas emissions. This therefore has led to the formulation of product carbon footprinting standards (PCFs), which are required for compliance by new markets on a yearly basis. The stringent retail standards flowed from the Kyoto Protocol which was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to set targets for reducing or limiting emissions over the period of 2008 to 2020. South Africa committed to the protocol and as such has to contribute towards global greenhouse gas (GHG) migration efforts. Under the Copenhagen Accord South Africa also pledged an emission reduction of 34% below business as usual by 2020 and 42% by 2025. A carbon footprint measures the total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that are being released into the atmosphere by an organisation, event, product or person on an annual basis. The carbon footprint can be calculated by using online carbon calculators, or by making use of carbon consultants, who generally are expensive. Several online carbon footprinting calculators are available, but they do not accommodate smallholder mixed farming systems. This study evaluates the available farming carbon calculators, highlights their limitations and identifies the needs of a smallholder mixed farming carbon calculator for South Africa, which will facilitate compliance with environmental standards, domestic food markets and to help create awareness of the emissions and resource use of smallholder farmers. This study thus provides the background for the development of a carbon calculator tool for mixed smallholder farming systems. The factors that were looked at were fuel and electricity usage, agro-chemicals, land-use changes, livestock, crops, processing and packhouse information, packaging, waste, cold storage information and distance travelled. The anticipated advantage of the tool is to equip smallholder farmers for the indirect effects of phase one of the anticipated carbon tax by providing them with the information needed to plan for more efficient farming activities as well as reducing input cots. An added benefit of the information gained from this calculator is that it is expected to assist smallholder farmers in identifying factors that are prohibiting them from complying with the larger retailer ‘green’ standards. Due to the limitations of the study a sample was taken from the Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s SimFini project, the project was selected as it provided an excellent example of proper financial recording keeping which is often lacking for smallholder farmers. The study also provides a profile of smallholder farmers in the Western Cape (WC). The sampled participants were used only to test the calculator’s success and the shortcomings of the recordkeeping system. The results from the calculator could further be used to assist smallholder farmers to identify their farm’s major emission sources, which if reduced could decrease their production costs and increase their retailer compliance. The main findings of the study are:  That although farmers have financial records in place, the operation records are not being kept; and  Enteric fermentation, agro-chemicals (which includes fertiliser), mobile fuels and electricity were the biggest emitters.