When fossil-fuel prices were low and we did not care much about pollution or emissions, we did not worry about the energy waste. Now that prices are higher and we care more about environmental impacts, we have to improve that 10:1 ratio. The inefficiency could get even worse in the U.S. as more people, powered by cheap air conditioning, move into areas where local food production can support a mere fraction of the growing population (think Phoenix). In these cases, even more energy is used either to bring inferior lands into production through energy-intensive fertilizers and irrigation or to move food from remote markets.
Global trends will aggravate the challenge. World population is projected to grow to more than nine billion by 2050. Per capita energy and food consumption will rise, too: notably, as people get richer, they consume more meat, which is much more energy-intensive than other foods. And climate change implies that food production will be hurt by crop losses from droughts and floods, saltwater intrusion into aquifers, higher temperatures (which will decrease the effectiveness of photosynthesis in many places) and competition from biofuels for farmland. As a consequence, experts predict that food production will have to double by 2050.
Local Farming Might Not Help
Unfortunately, thinking about some popular food production “solutions” through the lens of energy shows that they do not always help. For example, many people have latched onto the local-food movement, billing themselves “locavores,” as an antidote to the energy used to transport food long distances and the energy intensity of large-scale industrialized agriculture. “Eat local” campaigns encourage residents to shop for local food from farmer’s markets or nearby community-supported farms.
Spending our money in the local community rather than sending it far away can be economically valuable, and having a vibrant local-food system creates resiliency in the event of unexpected occurrences such as war or drought. Local farms, however, sometimes use marginal lands to produce nonnative crops that require more chemicals and more energy for irrigation, and they still get low yields. Strangely enough, shipping food thousands of miles can sometimes require less energy, emit less carbon dioxide and do less environmental damage.
For example, it is typically less energy-intensive to grow lamb in New Zealand, where the animals graze on rain-fed grass that grows mostly without fertilizer or irrigation, and ship it to the U.K. than it is to grow lamb in the U.K. using energy-intensive inputs. Further, large industrialized farms, outfitted with laser-leveled fields (to minimize water losses and fertilizer runoff) and GPS-equipped tractors (to optimize fuel use and crop density) and planted with genetically modified crops designed to use minimal water can be surprisingly resource-efficient when compared with a bunch of distributed farms that inefficiently use energy and water but are closer to home. A Stanford University study concluded that Big Agriculture has spared a lot of carbon emissions because of its yield improvements and economies of scale.
Vertical, urban farms or algae production for feed, now in prototype stages, also has the potential for even greater biomass production per square foot of land than local farms.
Some popular solutions for renewable energy actually complicate the food-energy system. Food-based feedstocks—corn, soy, sugar and palm—dominate the world markets for biofuels and create unhealthy competition for farmland and freshwater. In 2010 in the U.S., about 30 million acres—more than one fourth of overall corn production—were used to produce 12.7 billion gallons of ethanol. That share will rise significantly as the U.S. tries to meet the federal mandate that 20 percent of all liquid transportation fuel come from biofuels by 2022.
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7 Comments
Add CommentLet's not forget the amount of energy we use to transport the foodstuff
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat would be "distribution" which is mentioned.
I think that people should start growing some crops at home or other places like a community garden, a window sill, etc. I started planting some tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and jalapeno's to make salsa.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeating The Drum of Popularism; Change what was learned for large population to reach older age: The most efficient answer will focus to absorption of nutrients. How to better use a food, so less quantity is used and more of the food does not go to waste. Sample: IGF1, found naturally in Milk & Honey helps with the absorption of amino acids. If, Billy takes a Colustrum capsule with his meat. The affect: Billy should eat less meat at dinner. Hence, less Cattle need to be raised to satisfy Billy's hunger. Or more Cattle can now be exported to satisfy the growing world population, with more people reaching older age. However, more research needs to be started on increasing the absorption of amino acids and a scale to measure absorption by.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiscovery of Plant 'Nourishing Gene' Brings Hope for Increased Crop Seed Yield and Food Security; This artilce underlines plants and increasing nutrients. Again, more research is need, when a Person consumes food, to increase absorption of nutrients.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120113102054.htm
In my environs, in India, the major way to reduce food-energy consumption is to focus on innovative storage and distribution chains, minimizing wastage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn India, meat consumption is very less compared to U.S or any other developed economy. And hence, reduced efficiency due to meat production does not occur here. However, as may be noted from the unfortunate turn of events happened over last year, our government godowns (where food stock is stored for distribution) prefer rotting of the same, to, distribution among the poor.
An important factor that is overlooked in this discussion is the unnecessary hype that surrounds any imported food product compared to native version of the same. These imports lead to wastage of hundreds of tons of fuel. A good example is, how India imports apples from all around the globe, when they can be raised in substantial amount in Shimla. Ironically, apple from Shimla are again exported to other nations.
That is a great idea. That even leads to developing an innate sense of belongingness with the nature as well as the community.
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