Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In addition, the average annual working hours of agricultural machin-
ery powered by electricity is about 500-600 h in China. It is signifi cantly
higher than the working hours of machinery powered by diesel. It is be-
lieved that instability of the diesel supply and rising prices are the reasons
for the low utilization rate of diesel machinery.
7.4.5 DIESEL FLOWS IN AGRICULTURE
Table 5 shows diesel consumption in different sectors of agriculture in
China from 1996 to 2010.
• Diesel consumption in four farming operations increased from 652.31 × 10
4
ton in 1996 to 884.01×10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 2.19%.
In these four operations, the mechanized harvesting has the largest annual
growth rate (i.e., 19.39%) of the diesel consumption. The annual growth
rates of mechanized tillage and mechanized sowing are 3.68% and 4.28%,
respectively, which are slightly higher than the average level among all
farming operations. Slight negative growth in the diesel consumption of
mechanized irrigation was witnessed in the past thirteen years.
• Diesel consumption by primary processing increased from 107.88 × 10
4
ton in 1996 to 111.78 × 10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 0.25%.
• Diesel consumption by animal husbandry increased from 8.07 × 10
4
ton in
1996 to 17.87 × 10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 5.84%.
• Diesel consumption by fishery increased from 54.86 × 10
4
ton in 1996 to
68.35 × 10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 1.58%.
• Diesel consumption by forestry increased from 0.31 × 10
4
ton in 1996 to
3.95 × 10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 20.07%.
• Diesel consumption by transportation increased from 238.74 × 10
4
ton in
1996 to 860.53 × 10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 9.59%.
• Diesel consumption by farmland construction increased from 13.94 × 10
4
ton in 1996 to 76.61 × 10
4
ton in 2010, with an annual increase of 12.94%.
Figure 9 shows the diesel fl ows of the agriculture in China. It is obvi-
ous that farming and transportation are the two largest diesel consumers,
while other sectors account for a negligible share. From 1996 to 2010,
diesel consumption by farming grew smoothly while diesel consumption
by transportation grew sharply. Transportation consumed nearly half of
the total diesel in 2010 and its share can be expected to continue to grow
in the future.
