The Oil Drum

178 comments on The Connection Between Food Supply and Energy: What Is the Role of Oil Price?

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Globo on October 23, 2007 - 10:41am

Nice analysis of the energy used by modern agriculture. However, the ag inputs are only part of the story. There are some good summaries of the total amount of energy used in the food system in the literature (e.g. Smil, Vaclav, 1991, General Energetics, John Wiley & Sons). It seems clear that the agricultural inputs are in the range of 1/4 of the total, with the remainder being energy used in the storage, transportation, distribution, marketing, and preparation of food. Meat production is perhaps an order of magnitude more energy-intensive than grain and bean production. Eating less meat and eating more locally-grown, in-season, foods will save a lot of energy.

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Jason Bradford on October 23, 2007 - 2:16pm

Here are some links to data on the U.S. food system:

http://www.energyfarms.net/node/1389

Looks to me like the total food system consumes about 10% of U.S. energy use, with on farm consumption (including embedded energy in fertilizer, pesticides, tractor fuel, etc.) about 1/4 to 1/5 of that 10%.

The most energy intensive part of the U.S. food system is actually home storage and preparation.

I have been learning a lot about grain production lately as working to sow wheat. Conventional grain yields are incredible (about 6000 lbs/acre of wheat in CA) and I don't expect to approach those with our organic, low energy, dryland methods. And, we need to rotate fields with cover crops to put nitrogen back in. So, I expect yields half to a quarter of conventional when sown, and to only grow wheat half the time. In total then, I expect to get a quarter to an eighth of the yield for a given area over the long term.

But, I do expect to have a very positive net energy!

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Gilgamesh on October 23, 2007 - 9:18pm

As a food engineer, let me tell you this is the case. something like 4.3 trillion dollars of food are turned over in the USA per year. Food goes into plant one place, comes out as prepared meals, canned goods, meats at another. Obviously different plants for different products, but usually we are constrained by a large problem:

Keep the water content as high as possible. (sell the rubes as little real food as possible)

Keep the weight down. As water is the #1 component of foods, this is in direct conflict with the above point. Less weight means less volume and cheaper transport!

You would be both surprised and disgusted by the amount of water shipped in packaged foods across the country.