2. Field Burning of Agricultural Residues
The Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines propose one method to estimate emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from agricultural residue burning in the field. When available, country-specific activity data and emission factors should be used. Default activity data and emission factors are available in the IPCC Guidelines. The primary uncertainty in estimating emissions of CH₄ and N₂O from agricultural residue burning is the fraction of agricultural residue burned in the field. The percentage of residue burned onsite must be based on a complete mass balance taking into account the crop production, the ratio of residue to crop, the quantity of residue transported from the field and used as animal fodder or for other purposes, and the fraction of residue decayed in the field.

Note that emission from burning of agricultural residues for energy production should be reported in the energy sector.

The IPCC method requires:

• Amount of crops produced with residues that are commonly burned;
• Residue produced per crop and season, usually estimated from crop production and residue/crop ratios;
• Fraction burned on site;
• Carbon released, which requires: dry matter content, fraction burned and oxidized in the field, carbon content, N/C ratio, and CH₄ and N₂O emission ratios.