Energy 47 (2012) 465e470

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Energy
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Extending the inputeoutput energy balance methodology in agriculture through

cluster analysis
Carlos Ricardo Bojacá a, *, Héctor Albeiro Casilimas b, Rodrigo Gil a, Eddie Schrevens c
a
Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Ingeniería, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Bogotá, Colombia
b
Centro de Bio-Sistemas, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Ingeniería, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Chía, Colombia
c
Department of Biosystems, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The inputeoutput balance methodology has been applied to characterize the energy balance of agri-
Received 2 May 2012 cultural systems. This study proposes to extend this methodology with the inclusion of multivariate
Received in revised form analysis to reveal particular patterns in the energy use of a system. The objective was to demonstrate the
31 August 2012
usefulness of multivariate exploratory techniques to analyze the variability found in a farming system
Accepted 22 September 2012
Available online 18 October 2012
and, establish efficiency categories that can be used to improve the energy balance of the system. To this
purpose an inputeoutput analysis was applied to the major greenhouse tomato production area in
Colombia. Individual energy profiles were built and the k-means clustering method was applied to the
Keywords:
Energy use
production factors. On average, the production system in the study zone consumes 141.8 GJ ha
1 to
Regional analysis produce 96.4 GJ ha
1, resulting in an energy efficiency of 0.68. With the k-means clustering analysis,
Greenhouse tomato three clusters of farmers were identified with energy efficiencies of 0.54, 0.67 and 0.78. The most energy
k-means clustering efficient cluster grouped 56.3% of the farmers. It is possible to optimize the production system by
Colombia improving the management practices of those with the lowest energy use efficiencies. Multivariate
analysis techniques demonstrated to be a complementary pathway to improve the energy efficiency of
a system.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the use of multi-
variate exploratory techniques to analyze the intrinsic variability of
a farming system and by doing so, establish an energy efficiency
classification that can be used to optimize the system from within.
To this purpose an inputeoutput analysis was applied to farmers
located in one of the major greenhouse tomato production areas in
Colombia. This case study also seeks to contribute in the analysis of
energy efficiency of agricultural systems in developing countries,
where still exist a dearth of research in this subject [1].
The agricultural sector has stepped up its energy consumption
due to the increased use of external resources such as machinery,
fertilizers and pesticides [2]. Globally, this increase in energy use
has contributed to higher yields. While in developing countries the
energy requirements per food calorie continue to rise, energy
intensities in developed countries decreased over the last three
* Corresponding author. Calle 22 No. 3-30, Módulo 15, Mezzanine, Bogotá,
Colombia. Tel.: þ57 1 8650218; fax: þ57 1 8650239.
E-mail address: carlos.bojaca@utadeo.edu.co (C.R. Bojacá).
decades [3]. The energy used in agriculture concerns above all the
non-renewable energy resources and implies effects on the social,
economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability [4].
A widely applied method to assess the energy efficiency of
agricultural systems is the energy inputeoutput analysis [5]. In this
method, all agricultural inputs and production are multiplied by
conversion factors to approximate input and output energy [3]. The
method has been applied at global [3], national [6e8] and regional
[9e13] scales to analyze the energy use efficiency of several agri-
cultural products. Through comparative studies, it has also been
used to assess the efficiency of different production systems such as
conventional vs organic [14e16] and open field vs greenhouse [17e
19]. Once the inputs and outputs are transformed into energy units,
indicators such as energy use efficiency, energy productivity,
specific energy and net energy can be derived [20].
In regional studies, data collection for most of these inpute
output analyses is done through personal interviews applied to
a sample of farmers [9e15,18,20]. How this sample was determined
is not mentioned in some cases [9,14,15] while others applied
different sample size calculations [10e13,18,20]. The factors of
interest are climate, water availability, soil characteristics, and
management practices all of which are highly variable and affect

0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2012.09.051
466 C.R. Bojacá et al. / Energy 47 (2012) 465e470

the energy efficiency of the system [1]. In order to work with the energy use efficiency (EUE) and net energy (NE) indexes [20],
wide variability and obtain useful results, these factors are according to the following formulas:
assembled in a multivariate dataset, where an n  p matrix is

composed by n observations (farmers) and p variables (agricultural Energy output MJ ha
1
EUE ¼
(1)
inputs and crop yield). Energy input MJ ha
1
Multivariate methods have been applied in various fields of
agricultural research, including plant community studies, house-    
hold assessment and regional studies [21]. However, the applica- NE MJ ha
1 ¼ Energy output MJ ha
1
tion of these methods to analyze the sustainability or the  
environmental impact of farming systems has been fairly limited
Energy input MJ ha
1 (2)
[21,22]. Despite the power of these methods and the nature of the
data, they have not been used to analyze the energy efficiency of
a farming system. 2.2. k-means clustering
Within an agricultural region, many physical, chemical and
biological properties directly related to the production system Within the multivariate analysis methods, the k-means algo-
exhibit spatial variability, even at small distances [23]. Such varia- rithm can classify farmers in terms of their energy use. It is used to
tion, linked to the temporal variation, implies that different levels separate n individuals into k groups such that the sum of squares
of input factors will result in varying yields [9]. Moreover, in from the observations to the assigned cluster center is minimized
developing countries the limited access to technology, unstan- [31,32].
dardized management practices and restricted knowledge of the In order to implement k-means clustering for the energy anal-
production system increase the range of the productivity levels ysis in the study zone, we modified the initial procedure and the
within a farming system. The variability of a farming system can be energy use assessment was carried out on an individual basis
exploited to characterize farmers in terms of their energy efficiency. instead of an average basis. In this way, the energy profile for each
Such characterization can indicate pathways to optimize the energy farmer was calculated and by doing so, a 126 (growers)  9
efficiency of the system as a whole. (production factors as listed in Table 3) matrix configured a multi-
variate dataset. The variables in this dataset included the input
factors and the output as well. Prior to the application of the k-
2. Methods of analysis means clustering analysis it was necessary to standardize the
dataset due to the high variances among variables. Following the
2.1. Energy use assessment procedure suggested by [31], the range was used to standardize
each variable. Range standardization consisted in dividing each
In this work, we followed the process analysis method [24] variable by its range.
where material and energy flows are considered to trace all The next step for the k-means clustering analysis was the defi-
inputs and outputs into the production system [25]. Initially, the nition of the number of clusters to group the growers [33]. The
energy inputeoutput analysis was carried out following the stan- CalinskieHarabasz criterion [34], which returns its maximum value
dard approach where the production inputs and yield were aver-
aged over the entire dataset. Afterwards, average inputs and output
were transformed into energy units according to the energy Table 2
Average (Standard deviation) inputs and output amounts of the greenhouse
equivalents presented in Table 1. The energy content of the crop
tomato system components in the Alto Ricaurte province, Colombia.
residues retained on the field was not considered. Energy use
assessment for the farming system was estimated through the Energy source Quantity (unit ha
1) Energy (MJ ha
1) % of total
energy
input
Table 1 Human labor 10794.3  5343.7 21156.8  10473.7 14.92
Energy equivalent factors used to transform the inputs and the output yield of the Machinery
greenhouse tomato production system in the Alto Ricaurte province, Colombia. Tractor (h) 5.0  4.3 331.4  289 0.23
Irrigation pump (h) 1.3  1.2 87.9  78.7 0.06
Energy source Unit Energy equivalent Reference Diesel oil (l) 861.2  601.4 39098.1  27304.3 27.57
(MJ unit
1) Infrastructure (kg)
Human labor h 1.96 [26] Steel 135.1  16.9 4458.8  558.1 3.14
Diesel oil l 45.4 [27] Wood 1615.4  266.4 1938.5  319.7 1.37
Infrastructure kg Polyethylene 660.0  74.4 6533.5  736.4 4.61
Steel 33 [28] Synthetic fiber 307.0  243.1 368.4  291.7 0.26
Wood 1.2 [28] PVC 151.8  40.1 1760.9  465.6 1.24
Polyethylene 9.9 [28] Fertilizers (kg)
Synthetic fiber 1.2 [28] N 423.1  201.8 25641.6  12228.7 18.08
PVC 11.6 P2O5 434.3  254.7 4821.1  2827.7 3.40
Fertilizers kg K2O 605.5  350.6 4056.6  2349.1 2.86
N 60.6 [29] Organic 9973.6  9425.4 2992.1  2827.6 2.11
P2O5 11.1 [29] fertilizers (kg)
K2O 6.7 [29] Pesticides (kg)
Organic fertilizers kg 0.3 [29] Fungicides 45.0  38.3 9710.1  8280.9 6.85
Pesticides kg Insecticides 31.3  31.1 3168.9  3151.3 2.23
Fungicides 216 [18] Plant material
Insecticides 101.2 [18] Seedlings (unit) 29917.1  5147.6 5983.4  1029.5 4.22
Plant material Water for 15373.2  10357.3 9685.1  6525.1 6.83
Seedlings unit 0.2 [9] irrigation (m3)
Water for irrigation m3 0.63 [30] Total energy input 141793.3  43665.7 100
Output kg Output
Tomato fruits 0.8 [13] Yield (kg ha
1) 120530.8  49585.0 96424.6  39668.0
 C.R. Bojacá et al. / Energy 47 (2012) 465e470 467

Table 3 In a person-to-person interview format, undergraduate intern-

Energy use assessment of the three clusters of growers found through the appli- ship students conducted the survey. Prior to fieldwork, the students
cation of the k-means classification method for the greenhouse tomato production
system in the Alto Ricaurte province, Colombia.
were trained on basic survey techniques, on how to adequately
apply the questionnaire and on how to properly fill in the form.
Energy source Cluster
Along with this, a pilot test was applied to growers of a different
(MJ ha
1)
1 2 3 production region in order to check the consistency and clearness
Human labor 17659.5 23998.4 26627.6 of the survey instrument. Minor adjustments were done to the
Machinery 24635.1 65693.4 54749.7 survey form and recommendations were given to the students after
Infrastructure 14792.5 16135.9 14988
this preliminary work.
Fertilizers 32089.1 36605.3 38257.1
Organic fertilizers 3132.1 4342.5 1936.3
The interviewers went all over the study zone through the main
Pesticides 8242.6 10984.5 23367.0 and secondary road systems looking for farms actively engaged in
Plant material 5673.7 6534.1 6297.1 greenhouse tomato production. This strategy was adopted due to
Water for irrigation 8081.9 19753.9 7183.9 the absence of an updated agricultural census for the study zone.
Output 89607.7 124011.5 94489.3
After a brief introduction of the activity and the inquiry to partic-
EUE 0.78 0.67 0.54
NE
24698.6
60036.4
78917.8 ipate, the students applied the survey to individual farmers in an
average time of 1.5 h. During AugusteDecember 2010 a total of 171
surveys were conducted and compiled into a database. Surveys
having more than 20% of missing data were excluded from the
near the optimal number of clusters, was applied to this purpose.
analysis, resulting in a sample of 126 surveys. For the remaining
Next, the k-means algorithm was applied and the group averages
surveys, variables with missing data were completed using the
for the predefined number of clusters were computed. As a result,
nearest neighbors’ method [38].
the average energy use assessment per group was calculated as
well as the efficiency indexes defined in Eqs (1) and (2). The
4. Results
statistical analyses were performed using the statistical program-
ming software R [35].
4.1. Overview of the production system

3. Case study: greenhouse tomato from Colombia
3.1. Study zone
Tomato is among the most consumed horticultural commodities
in Colombia with a production of 519,843 tons (t) harvested in
14,128 ha during 2010 [36]. Tomato production is spread country-
wide and the greenhouse production system is employed in 30% of
the cultivated area [37]. The Alto Ricaurte province lies in the
Eastern Range of Colombia and is the most important greenhouse
tomato production region in Colombia. This province comprises
a mountainous valley located in the Eastern range of the Colombian
Andes, in the central area of the department of Boyaca. Due to its
mild climate, the Alto Ricaurte province has seen a rapid expansion
in tomato production area under protected conditions for the last
decade. The overall impact of this agricultural activity is evident;
however, local institutions keep no reliable figures about it.
3.2. Data acquisition
Data was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire
consisting of 14 sections, including information concerning social,
economic, technical, and environmental topics. Farmers located in
the municipalities of Sachica, Santa Sofia, Sutamarchan, Tinjaca and
Villa de Leyva answered the questionnaire. The overall objective of
this survey was to make a full characterization of the greenhouse
tomato growers residing in the study zone. The first section of the
survey instrument included open questions related to his contact
details and family structure, followed by a set of sections with
questions concerning the planting history and the management
practices applied. Technical questions included topics such as water
sources and use, fertigation system, nutrient supply, pest incidence
and management, greenhouse characteristics and labor demand.
Considering the economic dimension, the survey asked for the final
destination of the produce, transport and input costs, prices ob-
tained and business perception. Lastly, the survey included ques-
tions about the relationship of the grower with other actors
involved in the production chain such as local extension services,
input suppliers, transporters and wholesalers.
Greenhouse tomato production in the study zone, as in the rest
of the country, is carried out under simple wood made structures
covered with a single sheet of polyethylene. No active climate
control system is present and air exchange between the exterior
and the inside area is done through an open fixed ridge present in
all the spans and by moveable curtains present in the greenhouse
walls. According to the survey, the average greenhouse floor area
was 2722 m2, with the greenhouses located in the range between
2078 and 2675 m above sea level.
Growers rely mainly in their own experience to handle their
crop and, eventually; they can get some technical assistance by
agronomists present in the area, but usually guided by commercial
interests. Many growers have an average of five years of experience
in growing tomatoes. Due to the climate of the zone and the
practices applied, growers can plant two cycles of 26 weeks each,
per year. The entire production is sent to Bogota, the country’s
capital, where the biggest market is located.
The technological level of the production system is low, while
mechanization is limited to soil preparation and most of the crop
management practices are done by hand. This is presented in
Table 2 where the average amount of resources used to plant 1 ha of
greenhouse tomatoes is shown. Fertilization in greenhouse toma-
toes comprises an initial correction of the nutrients in the soil,
which is done by the application of solid fertilizers. Organic fertil-
ization complements this initial solid correction and growers
mainly use chicken manure to this purpose. However, 28% of the
interviewees reported no use of organic fertilization at all. Due to
the nature of crop and the intensiveness of this production system,
the permanent application of water and fertilizers through the
irrigation system is a must. Drip irrigation systems are commonly
used and growers must ensure the water availability all year round,
mainly through reservoirs. Diesel pumps are used to operate the
irrigation systems, but 28% of the growers use gravity to run their
systems.
Pest management in this production system relies entirely on
the use of chemically synthesized pesticides to control a wide range
of pest and diseases. Growers reported the use of 98 different
pesticides, of which 53% were fungicides, 45% were insecticides and
2% were acaricides. On average, growers spray 5.8 commercial
468 C.R. Bojacá et al. / Energy 47 (2012) 465e470
pesticides during a growing season. The main targets of the pesti-
cides applied are whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum), tomato leaf
miner (Tuta absoluta), tomato late blight (Phytophtora infestans) and
powdery mildew (Sphaeroteca pannosa). Locally, the implementa-
tion of sustainable management schemes such as integrated pest
management or good agricultural practices still in its infancy.
As shown in Table 2, there is a great variability in the responses
given by the growers. At regional level there is no standard
management plans for planting greenhouse tomatoes and growers
follow their own plan based on their own criteria. Another vari-
ability source for the results obtained in the survey was that
growers keep no record about the activities carried out during
a production cycle. In consequence, growers had to rely on their
memory to answer the questionnaire giving some margin to inac-
curate answers.
4.2. Average energy use assessment
Following the conventional approach, the energy balance of the
production system was calculated based on the average resource
consumption and yield reported by the growers. The results for
each production factor and their contribution to the total energy
input are presented in Table 2. The materials included in the
machinery and fertilizers categories accounted for approximately
half of the total energy input. The highest energy share of all the
inputs was the diesel used to operate the tractor and the irrigation
pump. Next, N-based fertilizers and labor were the ones that
contributed the most on the energy input.
The energy consumption of materials and equipment used
throughout several production cycles is small because energy is
apportioned over the equipment lifespan. The energy used for pest
management represents 9.1% of total energy input. Energy
consumption of the irrigation pump has the lowest share of all
input factors.
The average production of fresh tomatoes was 120.5 t ha
1,
which represented an output energy of 96.4 GJ ha
1. The energy
embodied in the biomass residues was not considered since those
residues have no commercial value. The EUE index was 0.68 while
the NE was
45368.7 MJ ha
1. These results indicate a negative
energy balance implying that the amount of energy that enters the
system is higher than the amount represented by the edible
product.
4.3. Energy use assessment per cluster
The 126 growers were grouped into three clusters according to
the results given by the k-means algorithm. The multivariate
method was able to group 71, 20 and 35 growers into clusters 1, 2
and 3, respectively. Table 3 presents the energy profile for each
cluster based on the average input and output production factors.
Growers included in cluster 1 were characterized by a total energy
input of 114.3 GJ ha
1, with the highest share represented by the
fertilizers category (28.1%). The lowest share was allocated to the
energy embodied in the organic fertilizers. Compared with the
others, the growers included in this cluster used the lowest amount
of energy but at the same time were the ones with the lowest
production.
Cluster 2 was characterized by a higher energy use from the
machinery category, which is mainly related to the use of fuel for
the machinery operation. This category represented 35.7% of the
total energy consumption while organic fertilization indicated the
lowest share with 2.4%. This cluster was also characterized by using
the lowest energy share of labor, pesticides and fertilizers in
comparison with the other two clusters. On the other hand, this
cluster rated the highest share of water use among the three
clusters. This is in agreement with the results of the machinery
category where more operation hours and fuel are needed to irri-
gate the water applied. This cluster was the one with the highest
total energy input with 184 GJ ha
1 and at the same time the one
with the highest energy output. Cluster 2 surpassed by 38.3 and
31.2%, the energy output of clusters 1 and 3, respectively.
The machinery and fertilizers categories represented the high-
est share of the energy input in cluster 3. In comparison with the
other clusters the shares of energy use for infrastructure, organic
fertilization, plant material and water were the lowest with 8.6, 1.1,
3.6 and 4.1%, respectively. The growers included in this cluster,
consumed the highest proportion of energy for pesticides with
13.5%. This result doubled the ones obtained for the other two
clusters. This cluster reported an intermediate energy input
(173.4 GJ ha
1) and output (94.5 GJ ha
1) in comparison with the
other two clusters.
Considering the energy use assessment, the most energy effi-
cient growers were the ones belonging to cluster 1. This cluster
showed the highest EUE and NE indexes, by using the lowest input
energy and in consequence having the lowest yield levels. Cluster 3,
characterized by an output energy relatively close to the one
established for cluster 1, exhibited an extra energy input of 51.7% in
comparison to cluster 1, resulting in the less efficient cluster indi-
cated by the lowest EUE and NE indexes. In the case of cluster 3,
each energy unit that exits the system needed almost twice the
amount of input energy to be produced. Despite of having the
highest energy input, the energy efficiency of cluster 2 was in the
middle. The highest energy use was compensated by the highest
energy output of this cluster.
The graphical representation of the k-means clustering analysis
is presented in Fig. 1. Through principal component analysis the
standardized dataset was adapted and projected onto a two
dimensional space. A biplot showing the first two principal
components of the reduced dataset is commonly used to exhibit the
closeness among clusters. This is an indication of how different the
clusters are by projecting those in the two dimensions considered.
Fig. 1 shows a clear separation of the observations included in
cluster 2 in relation with the other two clusters. A slight overlap
Fig. 1. Biplot of the k-means three-cluster solution for the standardized energy
production factors of the greenhouse tomato production system located in the Alto
Ricaurte province of Colombia. The legend of the figure includes a description of each
cluster in terms of efficiency, input and output energy.
 C.R. Bojacá et al. / Energy 47 (2012) 465e470
between cluster 1 and 3 is observed in the biplot, indicating a closer
relationship between these two clusters. As explained before, this is
a consequence of lower energy inputs and closer energy output
values for these two clusters.
5. Discussion
The energy consumption for the production of greenhouse
tomatoes in the Alto Ricaurte province is 20% lower than that of
a production system in the Bogota plateau [9]. Some of the differ-
ence comes from differences in the data input. Nevertheless, both
studies indicated that one of the most energy consuming factors
was the application of chemical fertilizers.
In comparison with studies carried abroad, the energy use
pattern showed in the present study is similar for studies that share
a comparable production system. In the present study, a total
energy consumption of 141.8 GJ ha
1 was found, while in Turkey
ranged from 90.3 to 126.3 GJ ha
1 [13,39] and in Iran, greenhouse
tomatoes consumed 131.6 GJ ha
1 [40]. Considering the energy
profile in developed countries, the total energy input in Spanish
and Dutch greenhouses is 460.1 [41] and 13,000 GJ ha
1 [42],
respectively. All the studies carried out in developing countries,
including the present one, showed that the energy embodied in
diesel fuel and N-based fertilizers was the one with the highest
share among all the inputs considered.
According to the results the growers included in clusters 2 and 3,
representing 43.7% of the surveyed growers, exhibited average EUE
values lower than the one obtained for cluster 1. This result indi-
cates the possibility of optimize the energy use of those growers
that are actually not reaching the EUE found in cluster 1. Improving
the situation of these less efficient growers can lead to an overall
improvement of the production system at regional level. Internally,
growers included in cluster 1 are representing the best energy
profile right now but this does not imply the best possible scenario.
For the case of study, it is necessary an overall optimization in the
use of resources in order to reach a positive energy balance.
Improving the energy balance of the less efficient growers can be
seen as a complementary strategy to improve the overall energy
balance of the system.
6. Conclusions
The applicability of multivariate data analysis techniques in the
context of energy use in agriculture was investigated through a case
study related to the greenhouse tomato production in Colombia.
The actual production system generates a lower energy output than
the one inputted, showing an inefficient model. The system mainly
relies in non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels and
nitrogen based fertilizers to achieve its actual yields.
The k-means clustering analysis uncovered clusters of farmers
who share similar management practices and energy profiles. This
offers the possibility of optimizing the production of less efficient
growers by comparing the various energy inputs and outputs. This
would be a useful step to consider before the introduction of new
strategies for overall optimization of energy consumption of all
growers.
Multivariate analysis methods offer a straightforward and
powerful set of procedures that were useful to gain insight into the
data. The wealth of information given by these types of analysis
suggest pathways to improve the inputeoutput energy balance
methodology, especially for agricultural production systems where
unstandardized practices and particular criteria widen the
productivity range in a given study area.
469
Acknowledgments
The present study funded by the Flemish Interuniversity Council
(VLIR, http://www.vliruos.be) as part of the own initiative project
ZEIN2009PR364 entitled ‘Multidisciplinary assessment of effi-
ciency and sustainability of smallholder-based tomato production
systems in Colombia, with a roadmap for change’.
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