In order to find out the carbon footprint of crop production,the carbon footprint of oat in China was calculated based on the investigated data of 58 households and 16 processing enterprises in Zhangjiakou,Hebei,Wulanchabu and Hohhot,Inner Mongolia by using life cycle assessment theory.During the oat planting process,the carbon footprint per unit area was 800.29±263.77 kg CO2-eq·hm-2,and the carbon footprint per unit yield was 0.380±0.125 t CO2-eq·t-1. Among them,the carbon footprint per unit output of large oat growers was 0.380 ± 0.386 t CO2-eq·t-1,and the carbon footprint per unit area was 801.93 ±814.05 kg CO2-eq·hm-2,which was close to the average level. The carbon footprint of oat planting retail investorsper unit area was 648.54±875.31 kg CO2-eq·hm-2,which was 19.00% lower than the average level of oat cultivation,and the carbon footprint per unit output was 0.422±0.570 t CO2-eq·t-1,which was 11.10% lower than the average level of oat cultivation. During the oat processing,the carbon footprint of oatmeal flour,oatmeal and oatmeal rice processed per unit quality was 69.67±5.77,130.62±10.86 and 50.76±4.81 kg CO2-eq·t-1,respectively.From the perspective of the whole life cycle of oatmeal food,oats were suitable for large-scale planting because the carbon footprint of oats was significantly lower than the three staple crops:corn,rice and wheat. Among them,the amount of chemical fertilizer used by oat-growing retailers and the irrigation power consumption of large households were the main source of carbon footprint in oat planting. For oat processing,oatmeal had the largest carbon footprint due to the need to heat to kill enzymes and steam in the processing of oatmeal involved the use of natural gas,the energy consumption was increased. Therefore,it was conducive to the sustainable development of oat industry to reduce carbon footprint by large-scale planting of farmers,choosing water-saving irrigation technologies,guiding relevant enterprises to process nearby,moderate processing,and optimizing energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies. |