Energy budgeting of different rice-based cropping systems for designing environmentally sustainable production in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of sub-tropical region

Rice-based cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains are vital for regional food security, but due to their high energy inputs and environmental impacts, adopting optimized energy budgeting and diversifying the system through intensification can enhance sustainability and resource efficiency. A field experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Research Farm, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bihar, India during 2017–2018 and 2018–2019 to study the productivity and energetics of various rice-based cropping systems under irrigated conditions. The treatment comprised nine rice-based cropping sequences. The rice–cabbage + coriander leaf–sesamum system recorded significantly high system rice equivalent yield, system productivity, system profitability, and relative production efficiency over the rest of the cropping sequences in the study. Moreover, the conventional rice–wheat–mustard system recorded 56.7% lower relative economic efficiency as compared to rice–maize + vegetable pea–sorghum + fodder cowpea, rice–potato + radish–mungbean, and rice–cabbage + coriander leaf–sesamum system. Furthermore, rice–maize + vegetable pea–sorghum + fodder cowpea and rice–cabbage + coriander leaf–sesamum system attained higher energy productivity (371.3–408.6 kg MJ −1 ) along with the lowest specific energy (2458–2,700 MJ t −1 ) among the nine rice-based cropping systems. The study concluded that based on their availability of the resources, rice–maize + vegetable pea–sorghum + fodder cowpea or rice–cabbage + coriander leaf–sesamum could be the best suitable energy efficient cropping systems for higher system yield and maximizing profit.