Objective  An analysis on balancing the ecological and economic benefits of peach orchard operations was conducted at the poverty-stricken areas in Ningde, Fujian Province to evaluate the grass-growing vs. ground-clearing practices for sustainable peach cultivation at a village scale.

  Method   A method of analyzing emergy consumption was applied to compare the grass-growing(located at Laidun Village, Gutian County) and ground-clearing(located in Hutou Village, Fu’an County) modes practiced at peach orchards, in Fujian Province, by calculating indices of total emergy input (T), emergy self-sufficiency ratio (ESR), emergy investment ration (EIR), emergy yield ratio (EYR), environmental load ratio (ELR), emergy sustainable index (ESI), and emergy feedback rate (FYE) .

  Result   The 2017–2018 indicators of the grass-growing and ground-clearing modes, respectively, were T at 1.16×10¹⁶ and 2.36×10¹⁶ sej·hm⁻², ESR at 0.166 and 0.102; EIR at 5.030 and 8.823; EYR at 1.199 and 1.113; ELR at 0.425 and 0.410; ESI at 2.822 and 2.716; and, FYE at 0.072 and 0.026. The ground-clearing peach cultivation at Hutou employed greater inputs on both labor and organic/chemical fertilizers to resulted in a slightly lower ELR than its counterpart. In contrast, at Laidun, where grass-growing and utilization of methane were applied, led to a significantly higher FYE than at Hutou owing to a reduced demand on chemical fertilizer and emergy inputs by 57.2%. In addition, a significant 46.32% saving on emergy consumption per 10 000 RMB output of the crop was realized at Laidun.

  Conclusion   Management of the peach orchard through grass-growing, combined with using methane liquid, has merits as an efficient and ecologically sustainable approach in the hilly villages of Ningde City.