Thiago Libório Romanelli

University of São Paulo | USP · Department of Biosystems Engineering (LEB)

Studies on the environmental footprints of agricultural production have strong links with 4 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) established by the United Nations. Irrigation systems are essential tools for increasing agricultural yields, particularly in arid regions. However, the production and assembly of these systems can have signi...

Key performance indicators (KPI) are essential to decision-making in an organization, but the approach to analysis and composition used in the formulation of the KPIs can lead to errors. Analysis based only on averages does not allow for discriminating between variations that are natural to the process or special cases which require investigation....

Rio Grande do Sul (RS) presents a known year-on-year unevenness for soybean production, mainly due to water availability. This study aimed to assess the climate effects, with special focus on rainfall during 25 soybean-growing seasons. Eleven sites were clustered according to soybean yield. The effect of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was cons...

The exploitation of natural resources for agriculture is growing to fulfill the demand for food, which requires the rational use of inputs for sustainable production. Brazilian agricultural production stands out on the international scene. For instance, corn is one of the most exported products in Brazil, which is possible through the planting in t...

This study evaluates how much technology adoption could cost in a variety of crop-production scenarios. Cost-reduction simulations consider scenarios of higher input use efficiency such as reducing the usage of diesel, labor, irrigation, fertilizer, herbicide, and seed, among others. The scenarios aim to increase yields by integrating the effect of...

Coffee is a crop of great relevance in socioeconomic terms for Brazilian agribusiness, which is the world’s largest producer in cultivated areas. The implementation of precision agriculture in the coffee culture has provided countless benefits to its development, which over the years has been cultivated in the same area. However, there is a lack of...

Traditional logistics of residue removal is expensive and energy demanding, such as the procedures adopted for removing remaining stumps on forest biomass production. When considered as a biomass source, stumps can contribute to minimizing problems related to the restriction of the use of the area in terms of the use of the machines and operational...

Abstract: Every year the agricultural sector around the world undergoes the adverse effects of extreme hydrometeorological and climate events (EHCEs), which may increase in the coming decades. In Brazil and the United States of America (USA), this concern is warranted in soybean production since it is the largest crop in each country in terms of th...

Crop rotation with leguminous species in sugarcane cultivation is increasing in the southeastern regions of Brazil. Most of researches done on sugarcane is focused on yield regardless its final product. In the specific case of sugarcane ethanol production, studies rely basically on the economic and sustainable points of view overlooking the energy...

Energy is required in all agricultural activities. Diagramming material flows needed by crop production systems supports the proper analysis of energy flows interactions within a system's boundaries. The latter complemented with an economic analysis gives a clear view of how beneficial a new practice within a crop cycle is-in this case, the variabl...

Agricultural machinery is crucial to agriculture because it enables field activities and production in large scale. Through mechanisation, agriculture requires inputs such as fuel and indirectly demands materials. Its impact can be assessed through energy, water and carbon footprints. Some studies have updated indices for agricultural machinery, sh...

Core objectives of precision agriculture are to improve the economic and environmental performance of agricultural systems. This study used a long-term experiment in citrus to assess whether site-specific nutrient management was successful from these two perspectives. Variable and uniform rate fertilisation treatments were implemented in intercalat...

Carbon mitigation options have been measured neglecting the role that fossil fuels play as energy sources. For instance, producing wood or storing carbon would not have a cyclical effect on energy supply. This study suggests an approach to measure the carbon offset of biofuels, regarding the concept of exergy on carbon mitigation and the area requi...

Pea (Pisum sativum L) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) are important grain legumes grown in the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest United States. The USDA-ARS grain legume breeding program in this region focuses on developing pea and chickpea varieties with high yield potential, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, and superior agronomic...

Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.) is an oil seed species, adaptive to different climate and soil conditions. It is known due to its high-oil-content seed, being an option for biodiesel production and presenting competitive yields under irrigated condition. This study was developed in an experimental area located in a humid subtropical region of Brazil...

Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.) is an oil seed species, adaptive to different climate and soil conditions. It is known due to its high-oil-content seed, being an option for biodiesel production and presenting competitive yields under irrigated condition. This study was developed in an experimental area located in a humid subtropical region of Brazil...

The intensification of agricultural production systems demands power, supplied by agricultural machinery, besides more agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and seeds. Agricultural mechanization provides increase in the global production of food, fiber and bioenergy; and it brought economic benefits to producers, but causing larger en...

The intensification of agricultural production systems demands power, supplied by agricultural machinery, besides more agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and seeds. Agricultural mechanization provides increase in the global production of food, fiber and bioenergy; and it brought economic benefits to producers, but causing larger en...

Climate, area expansion and the possibility to grow soybean and maize within a same season using the no-tillage system and mechanized agriculture are factors that promoted the agriculture growth in Mato Grosso State – Brazil. Mechanized operations represent around 23% of production costs for maize and soybean, demanding a considerably powerful mach...

Driven by biofuel policies, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase domestic energy supply, global production and consumption of bioethanol have doubled between 2007 and 2016, with rapid growth in corn-based bioethanol in the US and sugarcane-based bioethanol in Brazil. Advances in crop yields, energy use efficiency in ferti...

Occurrence of staple crops' yield gaps is object of study worldwide. A theoretical approach, model and statistical-based, was carried out to assess the climate-induced variability of rainfed maize yields and yield gaps in different regions in Central-Southern Brazil in both main growing seasons. A crop simulation model was used to estimate potentia...

Sugarcane to biofuel is already a reality on the path to economy decarbonisation in Brazil, helping to mitigate global climate changes and reducing pressure on fossil fuel demand. To assess the sustainability performance of sugarcane biofuel production in Brazil, we utilised an extended multi-region input-output (MRIO) matrix to determine the multi...

Besides global climate changes and the exhaustion of natural resources, the concern about energy resources is one of the main challenges of 21st century. The growing population and, consequently, the increasing demand for food, fibre and bioenergy leads to an intensive use of machinery and equipment, resulting in more energy required and more green...

Energy supply and global warming are two of the main challenges of 21st century. To produce food to satisfy the increasing world population requires using more assets, more energy and emitting more greenhouse gases. Studies approaching embodied energy into and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural machinery are rare. This study determined the...

Capacity planning in agricultural field operations needs to give consideration to the operational system design which involves the selection and dimensioning of production components, such as machinery and equipment. Capacity planning models currently onstream are generally based on average norm data and not on specific farm data which may vary fro...

Soybean is the main product of Brazilian agribusiness, both production and income. Considering the increase in food and energy demand and the search for more sustainable production systems, this study aimed to analyze inputs and energy use of a possible area of expansion of soybean production: a system under sub irrigation management located in a l...

Computer algorithms have been created to simulate in advance the orientation/pattern of a machine operation on a field. Undesired impacts were obtained and quantified for these simulations, like: maneuvering and overlap of inputs in headlands; servicing of secondary units; and soil loss by water erosion. While the efforts could minimize the overall...

The amount of energy required to produce a commodity or to supply a service var- ies from one production system to another and consequently giving rise to differing levels of environmental efficiency. Moreover, since energy prices have been continuously increasing over time, this energy amount may be a factor that has economic worth. Biomass produc...

A crise energética, associada ao aumento da demanda por combustíveis e à crescente preocupação com o meio ambiente, tem levado à busca por fontes alternativas de energia. Além disso, a entrada de novos equipamentos e máquinas agrícolas altamente competitivos, em termos de custo, vem despertando o interesse dos agricultores. No entanto, tais equipam...

Este livro é o resultado da necessidade de ordenar conhecimentos sobre a produção de energia e suas implicações ambientais, no panorama nacional e mundial, para que sirvam de base à introdução de estudos acadêmicos nos cursos que têm como assunto principal a gestão do ambiente natural, local em que se desenvolvem as atividades sociais e econômicas...

Machinery has direct and indirect costs associated with their work in field, with nonproductive time spent in manoeuvres when machinery reaches field borders. Much work has been carried reducing the number of manoeuvres in complex field shapes and changing the type of manoeuvre in order to speed them up. Biofuel producing crops such as sugarcane (S...

Since green revolution agriculture has provided more yield vis-à-vis more energy demand. Currently, in the search for bioenergy, Brazilian sugarcane has gained attention, but as an energy source its efficiency has to be monitored. Energy balance is the physical evaluation of required inputs, but rarely studies present data about material. For agric...

Sugarcane production system is in transition, mainly due to its harvesting process. Harvest through burning has been gradually replaced by mechanized processes, providing another by-product to be explored: sugarcane trash. In Brazil, through of the sugarcane trash, São Paulo state itself produces around 210.4 million BOE – barrel of oil equivalent...

Technological, energetic, economic and environmental feasibilities of a production system should be analyzed for the best conditions for implementing a process to be established. Refined soybean oil is a high-cost feedstock for biodiesel production, because it involves crop production, oil extraction and refining. Desolventizing and refining steps...

Citrus orchards are very important in Brazil, especially in São Paulo State, where occupy an area of 600,000 ha approximately. To identify sustainability degree of citrus production system, an energy analysis allows evaluating efficiency of direct and indirect applied inputs. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate citrus production system under energet...

Evaluations able to estimate sustainability indices of production systems have intensified the use of complex analysis. The energy flow methodology considers the total direct and indirect energy required by production systems. A way to determine energy flows is through material flow determination, which is used as a material inventory of processes....

Energy flow analysis is an interesting approach to assess and to improve sustainability of agricultural production systems, represented by the economy of energy resources and other inputs translated into energy terms. This type of analysis can complement the economic view contributing to more efficient production systems. Moreover, assessing crops...

Intensification of agricultural production has largely been based on higher energy demand. In Brazil, sugarcane cultivation, ethanol production and the adoption of mechanised harvesting have increased since 2000 due to economic decisions and environmental constraints. Evaluating the energy demand in production systems is a way to measure how intens...

Dependence on finite resources brings economic, social, and environmental concerns. Planted forests are a biomass alternative to the exploitation of natural forests. In the exploitation of the planted forests, planning and management are key to achieve success, so in forestry operations, both economic and noneconomic factors must be considered. Thi...

Based on material flows, energy flow assessment evaluates environmental sustainability and energy use efficiency on a production system. As precision agriculture was developed to optimize agricultural production, energy assessment has become an interesting approach to analyze these systems. A method was developed to propitiate energy evaluation on...

As the requirement for agriculture to be environmentally suitable there is a necessity to adopt indicators and methodologies approaching sustainability. In Brazil, biodiesel addition into diesel is mandatory and soybean oil is its main source. The material embodiment determines the convergence of inputs into the crop. Moreover, the material flows a...

Although energy analysis is a way to evaluate the sustainability of production systems, this practice is not often used in the agribusiness. In this context, the castor bean (Ricinus communis L) is an agricultural crop not yet well studied despite its great potential in the Brazilian energetic scenario. This article aimed to evaluate the productive...

The mechanized harvest of sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum L.) in Brazil is an irreversible trend and it comes with a great concern about the quality of the cane delivered to the industry. A key component to quality is the billet length which affects the processing of raw material, cane deterioration, invisible losses and load density of transport...

The approach of material embodiment in agricultural production systems is important because it determines the convergence of inputs (indirectly, the natural resources) to the field. Additionally, material flow is the basis for both environmental (energy analysis, emergy synthesis, life-cycle analysis and carbon inventories) and economical analyses....

La matriz energética de Bra-sil indica que el 45.3% de la ener-gía es de origen renovable, con porcentajes sobre el total del 16.4% procedente de la caña de azúcar, 13.8% de los aprovecha-mientos hidroeléctricos y 11.6% de leña y carbón vegetal. Para la energía de origen fósil destaca la procedente del petróleo, con un ciente, cuando la realidad es...

Maximizing yields is opposed to the goal of minimizing the use of inputs. In the context of system rationalization, the addition of non-economic parameters in the decision making and the magnitude of eucalyptus plantation in Sao Paulo State, Brazil led to this study. The objective was to establish the flows and to evaluate the performance of energy...

4 September 2009. The authors are solely responsible for the content of this technical presentation. The technical presentation does not necessarily reflect the official position of the International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (CIGR), and its printing and distribution does not constitute an endorsement of views which may...

We used environmental accounting to evaluate high-intensity clonal eucalyptus production in São Paolo, Brazil, converting inputs (environmental, material, and labor) to emergy units so ecological efficiency could be compared on a common basis. Input data were compiled under three pH management scenarios (lime, ash, and sludge). The dominant emergy...

Cattle is the main protein source in Brazil and cattle production depends on preserving forage in order to decrease the influence of dry periods on grass production. To minimize such problems, some new techniques have been created to increase the yield which also leads to energy demand increase. Energy balance is a vital tool to evaluate the effici...