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‘Fueling’ Agriculture
During the last election
campaign we heard a lot of
talk about the 1 percent
very wealthy versus the 99
percent everyone else in
terms of economics interests. Based on the information in last month’s
editorial (Part 22), I am
much more impressed
with the approximately 2
percent of Americans who
produce more than enough
food to feed themselves,
the other 98 percent of
Americans and export a
Part 23
large percentage of U.S.
food and feed crops to other countries.
This month we will focus on the “Energy Flow” that feeds the 100 percent
in the U.S. and show you why those
who claim there will be minimal impact from “Cap and Tax” legislation are
at best grossly uninformed.
Figure 1 illustrates the Energy Flow in the U.S. Food
System based on a December 2000 study by the University
of Michigan (sorry, Ohio State fans). Energy Flow refers to
the relationship between the amount of food energy produced in the U.S. and the amount of energy used to produce, transport, process, package, sell, store and prepare
that food. The amount of U.S. food energy produced annually is 1.4 Quads, or 1.4 Quadrillion btus. If you convert
Figure 1
Energy Flow in the U.S. Food System
Note: 1 Quad = 1x1015 btus or 1,000,000,000,000,000 btus.
Source: http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS01-06.pdf
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COUNTRY LIVING
• DECEMBER 2012
btus to food calories at the rate of 1 btu = .25199 food calories, then the U.S. produces 2,595 trillion food calories per
year, or 7.1 trillion food calories per day. If you recall from
Part 21, the minimum “survival” calories needs of 7 billion
human beings are 14 trillion food calories per day. This
means that the U.S. produces just over half of those required food calories!
How has this been made possible? The first half of the
answer is the Green Revolution which actually began in
Mexico in 1944. A plant-breeding station was established
in northwest Mexico headed by Norman Borlaug, a plant
breeder from the University of Minnesota. He developed a
high-yielding wheat plant, which has since spread
throughout the world. This project’s success was followed
by a similarly successful project for rice in the Philippines.
Plant breeders also have developed high yielding varieties
for other major crops including sorghum, corn and beans
in about 16 plant breeding centers around the world. All
countries benefit by this research. For example, over the
last 60 years U.S. corn yields per acre have more than
quadrupled.
The second half of the answer has been the dramatic
changes in farming practices, including the conversion
from animals (primarily horses in the U.S.) to fossil-fueled
powered farm machinery and the widespread use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. This fact is illustrated in
this month’s cartoon.
The first primary energy input into agriculture is solar
energy, since all food energy is based on capturing the
sun’s energy through the process of photosynthesis (see
Part 14). The sun also drives the second major input neces-
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sary for plant growth, and that is water from the earth’s
water cycle. The sun’s heat evaporates surface water,
which later condenses and falls as rain, which supplies the
water necessary for photosynthesis. Prior to the introduction of fossil fuels, the additional energy inputs came from
human and animal muscle power, which in turn is fueled
by food calories derived from solar energy. This is why
prior to the Industrial Revolution, the majority of the population was involved in agricultural production (see Part
22). One estimate is before the widespread use of motorized farm equipment, approximately 20 percent of the
food calories produced were used to feed (fuel) the horses
oxen used to help power the farms.
The second primary energy input comes from fossil
fuels, which were originally derived from solar energy (see
Part 14). Originally, gasoline was primarily used when
farm equipment was first motorized. (Earlier, there were
steam powered threshing machines which burned wood or
coal.) Today, roughly 75 percent of farm equipment uses
diesel fuel to plant, cultivate, harvest and ship crops grown
in the U.S. Another major fossil fuel input is natural gas,
which is used in large quantities to make anhydrous ammonia fertilizer for the corn crop. Propane (butane in some
southern states) and natural gas are used for drying grains
to a safe moisture level for storage. I remember visiting my
father in Nebraska where a nearby plant used natural gas
to dry alfalfa which gave a somewhat pleasant aroma for
miles around. Petroleum and natural gas are also used as
chemical feed stocks to produce the herbicides and pesticides used in agriculture.
Electricity (generated by mostly coal and natural gas for
Ohio’s electric cooperatives) is another major farm energy
input. Electricity is used to load and unload grain from
storage bins. It is used to power air moving fans on crop
dryers and on grain bins. Electricity is used for farm lighting, milking machines, livestock ventilation and feeding,
water pumping, and manure management (sure beats
shoveling it all by hand!).
Going back to Figure 1, we see that a little more than 2
Quads of energy are used in agricultural production. Note
Figure 3
Comparative trends of crop commodity and oil
price indice from 1990-2009 (with 2004 as baseline)
Source: http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2454e/i2454e00.pdf
Figure 2
Energy expended in producing
and delivering one food calorie
Source: http://www.postcarbon.org/files/PCI-food-and-farming-transition.pdf
that 43 percent more energy is going in than comes out as
food energy. Fossil fuels have replaced human and animal
muscle power which allows for the division of labor in the
economy which we discussed last month (Part 22). However, that is just the beginning of the energy inputs into the
food system. An additional 8.3 Quads of energy are used to
transport, process, package, sell, store and prepare the food
we eat after it is produced.
Another way of looking at this is shown in Figure 2. For
every calorie we produce and eat, there are 7.4 calories of
energy expended – mostly from fossil fuels. One logical result of this relationship between food energy inputs and
outputs is that food prices are very sensitive to fossil fuel
prices. This is illustrated in Figure 3 which shows the
1990-2009 relationship between the world Crude Oil Price
Index and the Cereals Price Index. The Cereals Price Index
is based upon international wheat, rice and corn prices
weighted by their average share of the world grain trade
market. You can see from Figure 3 that world grains prices
tend to increase with rising oil prices. You may recall the
food riots that broke out in 2008 in several countries due
to high food prices when oil prices spiked causing a run-up in fertilizer and fuel costs to agriculture.
Those who tried to sell us “Cap and Tax”
legislation in 2009 and by the Obama administration in 2012 claim there would be little
impact on the economy. All I can charitably say
is they are grossly uninformed. You’ve just seen
that any increase in fossil fuel costs, whether
by supply and demand market price change,
“Cap and Tax” legislation, direct carbon taxes
or EPA regulations will increase the cost of
food — at a ratio of 7.4 for every food calorie
produced. That’s an energy FACT no amount
of political or media spin can change.
DECEMBER 2012
• COUNTRY LIVING
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