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Will the Relationship Between Food and Energy Have Catastrophic Consequences?

There are a number of important intersections between our modern food system and our main sources of energy: oil, natural gas, and coal-generated electricity. Global climate disruption and the financial meltdown are now combining in interlocking fashion with peak oil to put our economy in a vice grip. It is now more important than ever that we understand the relationship between food and energy. Problems with our energy supplies ultimately will mean problems with our food supply.

Today's article explores the food-and-energy issue. It's the final part of a four-part series of excerpts that Grinning Planet is running from Lester Brown's excellent book, Plan B 3.0—Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

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Energy and Food Security,
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute

Modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel fuel, natural gas, or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production is also energy-intensive—natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers, and the mining, manufacture, and international transport of phosphates and potash all depend on oil.

Efficiency gains can help reduce agriculture's dependence on oil. In the United States, the use of farm fuel fell from its historical high of 7.7 billion gallons in 1973 to 4.2 billion in 2005—a decline of 45%. Calculated more broadly, the gallons of fuel used per ton of grain produced decreased by an impressive 64% from1973 to 2005.

One reason for this achievement was a shift to minimum- and no-till cultural practices on roughly two-fifths of US cropland. But while US agricultural fuel use has been declining, in many developing countries it is rising as the shift from draft animals to tractors continues. A generation ago, for example, cropland in China was tilled largely by draft animals. Today much of the plowing is done with tractors.

Fertilizer accounts for 20% of US farm energy use. Worldwide, the figure may be slightly higher. As the world urbanizes, the demand for fertilizer climbs. As people migrate from rural areas to cities, it becomes more difficult to recycle the nutrients in human waste back into the soil, requiring the use of more synthetic fertilizer. Beyond this, the growing international food trade can separate producer and consumer by thousands of miles, further disrupting the nutrient cycle. The United States, for example, exports some 80 million tons of grain per year—grain that contains large quantities of basic plant nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The ongoing export of these nutrients would slowly drain the inherent fertility from US cropland if the nutrients were not replaced.

Irrigation, another major energy claimant, is requiring more energy worldwide as water tables fall and water must be pumped from ever lower levels. In the United States, close to 19% of farm energy use is for pumping water. In some states in India where water tables are falling, over half of all electricity is used to pump water from wells.

Energy and Food

BEYOND THE FARM

Although attention commonly focuses on energy use on the farm, agriculture accounts for only one-fifth of the energy used in the US food system. Transport, processing, packaging, marketing, and kitchen preparation of food are responsible for the rest. The US food economy uses as much energy as the entire economy of the United Kingdom.

Moving farm goods from field to consumer takes about 14% of the food system's energy use—that's about two-thirds of the energy used by farmers to produce the food. An estimated 16% of food system energy use is devoted to canning, freezing, and drying food—everything from frozen orange juice concentrate to canned peas.

Historically, food staples such as wheat have moved over long distances by ship. What is new is the shipment of fresh fruits and vegetables over vast distances by air. Few economic activities are more energy-intensive.

Food miles—the distance that food travels from producer to consumer—have risen with cheap oil. At my local supermarket in downtown Washington, DC, the fresh grapes in winter typically come by plane from Chile, traveling almost 5,000 miles. One of the most routine long-distance movements of fresh produce is from California to the heavily populated US East Coast. Most of this produce moves by refrigerated trucks. In assessing the future of long-distance produce transport in the face of shrinking energy supplies, writer James Howard Kunstler observed that the days of the 3,000-mile Caesar salad may be numbered.

Packaging is also surprisingly energy-intensive, accounting for 7% of the food system's energy use. It is not uncommon for the energy invested in packaging to exceed that in the food it contains.

The most energy-intensive segment of the food chain is the kitchen. Much more energy is used to refrigerate and prepare food in the home than is used to produce it in the first place. The big energy user in the food system is the kitchen refrigerator, not the farm tractor. While oil dominates the production end of the food system, electricity dominates the consumption end.

With higher energy prices, the modern food system that evolved when oil was cheap will not survive as it is now structured.

Energy and Food

THE CHANGING FOOD PROSPECT

The world grain harvest has more than tripled since 1950. The most rapid growth came between 1950 and 1973, when the grain harvest doubled. In those 23 years, grain harvests expanded by as much as they had during the preceding 11,000 years.

The mid-twentieth century marked an abrupt transition point in world agriculture as the frontiers of agricultural settlement largely disappeared. Prior to then, increases in the harvest came largely from expanding the cropped area, as farmers moved from valley to valley and eventually from continent to continent. Yield increases were typically so slow as to be imperceptible within a human life span. In contrast, since 1950, four-fifths of the growth in world grain harvest has come from raising land productivity, with much of the rise dependent on fossil fuels and energy-intensive technologies.

Between 1950 and 1990, the systematic application of science to agriculture helped raise grain productivity worldwide by 2.1% a year, every year. But by 1990, most of the easy steps to raise grain yields had already been taken, and since then the rise has slowed to 1.2% a year. Most notably, since the mid-1980s, the growth in grain production has lagged behind the growth in world population. Grain production per person peaked in 1984.

Energy and Food

CARS AND PEOPLE COMPETE FOR CROPS

We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the relationship between oil and food, one that has been in the making for several decades. From 1950 to 1972, a bushel of wheat could be traded for a barrel of oil on the world market. The price of each during that period was remarkably stable, averaging just under $2 for a bushel of wheat or barrel of oil. Since then, oil prices have climbed. In late 2007, even with a run-up in wheat prices, it took eight bushels of wheat to buy one barrel of oil.

When oil prices jumped above $60 a barrel in 2005, investments in corn-based distilleries surged. Once dependent on the ethanol subsidy of 51 cents per gallon, distillery investment was now being driven primarily by surging oil prices. By mid-2007, the capacity of plants under construction slightly exceeded that of all plants built since the crop-based fuel ethanol program began decades earlier.

Energy and Food

FOOD-TO-FUEL PROGRAMS ELSEWHERE

Brazil, the world's largest sugar producer and exporter, is now converting half of its sugarcane harvest into fuel ethanol. With 10% of the world's sugar harvest going into ethanol, the price of sugar is rising. Cheap sugar may now be history.

In Europe, the emphasis is on producing biodiesel. In 2006, the European Union (EU) produced 1.2 billion gallons of biodiesel from vegetable oil, mostly in Germany and France, and 417 million gallons of ethanol, most of it distilled from grain in France, Spain, and Germany. To meet its goal of obtaining 10% of its automotive fuel from plant-based sources, the EU is increasingly turning to palm oil imported from Indonesia and Malaysia, a trend that is leading to the clearing of rainforests for oil palm plantations. Concerned about this impact, the Netherlands and some other EU countries are reconsidering import of palm oil for biodiesel production.

In 2006, China converted some 4 million tons of grain—mostly corn—into ethanol. In India, as in Brazil, ethanol is produced largely from sugarcane.

Energy and Food

INCREASING COSTS, INCREASING UNREST

As the share of the US grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries escalates, it is driving up food prices worldwide. In September 2007, the price of corn was nearly double that of two years earlier. Wheat prices had more than doubled, reaching historic highs. Soybean prices were up by more than half.

The countries initially hit by rising food prices were those where corn is a staple food. In Mexico, the price of tortillas in early 2007 was up by 60%. Angry Mexicans in crowds of up to 75,000 took to the streets in protest, forcing the government to institute price controls on tortillas.

In the summer of 2007, Italian consumers organized pasta boycotts to protest soaring prices. Meanwhile, the British were worrying about rising bread prices.

From an agricultural vantage point, the world's appetite for crop-based fuels is insatiable. The grain required to fill an SUV's 25-gallon tank with ethanol just once will feed one person for a whole year.

Historically, the food and energy economies were separate. But with so many ethanol distilleries now being built to convert grain into fuel, the two are merging. In this new situation the world price of grain is moving up toward its oil-equivalent value. If the fuel value of grain exceeds its food value, the market will simply move the commodity into the energy economy. If the price of oil jumps to $100 a barrel, the price of grain will follow it upward. If oil goes to $120, grain will follow. The price of grain is now keyed to the price of oil.

Energy and Food

ALTERNATIVES

For people, there are no alternatives to food; but for vehicles, there are alternatives to using food-based fuels. For example, the 4% of US automotive fuel currently supplied from ethanol could be offset several times over—and at a fraction of the cost—simply by raising auto fuel-efficiency standards by 20%.

Another way to reduce the fuel needed for cars is to shift to highly efficient gas-electric hybrid plug-in cars. This would allow motorists to do short-distance driving, such as their daily commute, with electricity. If wind-rich countries such as the United States, China, and those in Europe invest heavily in wind farms to feed cheap electricity into their grids, cars could run primarily on wind energy—and at the gasoline-equivalent cost of less than $1 a gallon.

As the world increasingly struggles to balance oil demand with faltering production levels, food will become more costly as higher oil prices drive up production costs and transport costs and as biofuel production keeps squeezing food supplies. As oil costs rise, diets will be altered as people move down the food chain and as they consume more local, seasonally produced food.

Grinning Planet publish date: 04-DEC-2008

Books:

• See books specifically related to the Food System and Energy

More recommended links:

• Richard Heinberg: The Food and Farming Transition
  An article about the agricultural transition that must occur if we are to avert a food crisis due to oil and natural gas price hikes and supply disruptions.
• Radio EcoShock: Food Domination, Survival, and Hybrid Human Power
  (Direct MP3 download from Radio EcoShock web site)
  A 1-hour audio show on how multinational corporations dominate our food supply and on how the "survival food" business is picking up these days (plus some food storage tips for you)
• Reality Report: Audio interviews related to food and farming
  A variety of interviews from the excellent Peak Oil show The Reality Report

More articles and resources on....

• Peak Oil
• Energy
• Farming/Agriculture
• Food/Nutrition
• All subjects

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"We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before."

— Lester Brown