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Page added on November 12, 2016
How Agriculture Uses Energy
When we think of ways to reduce emissions of toxic gas contributing to global warming, the suggestions brought up first are usually buying a car that has better gas mileage, recycling and composting, or buying energy-efficient appliances. All of these are excellent ways to help reduce energy consumption.
Agriculture in America, however, is responsible for about 14-18 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of solving the worldwide energy crisis, one of the best solutions is staring us right in the plate.
Energy Consumption of Farm Equipment
Each stage of farming requires the use of equipment and machinery that burn fossil fuels. When we burn these fuels, we add to the greenhouse gasses in the air – such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – that result in raising the Earth’s temperature.
While tractors may be the first piece of equipment that comes to mind when farm equipment is mentioned, other energy-consuming machines don’t get as much attention. For example, we don’t usually associate slaughtering animals with water consumption, but we should. Slaughtering just one animal can use up to 132 gallons of water.
That matters because the water doesn’t just appear – it has to be pumped in and out of the slaughterhouse. Those pumps run on electricity, which runs on fossil fuels. When the fact that roughly 55 billion animals are slaughtered each year is considered, this is truly astounding.
Although farmers can’t control the demand for meat, there is still a way to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in farming. Specifically, farmers who increase the amount of land that is no-till – for example, not cultivating dirt before planting seeds – reduce soil erosion as well as decrease overall diesel consumption. In fact, if farmers collectively doubled the acreage that is no-till, it could save up to 217 million gallons of diesel fuel each year.
Energy Consumption in Processing, Packaging, and Transporting Food
Producing food, whether it be through growing crops or raising cattle for slaughter, is only part of the equation. How the food makes it to your plate also factors into agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuel.
Although the amount of fuel it takes to transport food is enormous, even if we only ate local produce and dairy we would still have an area of waste: packaging.
Just like it takes a large amount of fossil fuels to operate the machinery that pumps water into slaughterhouses for sanitation, it takes a lot of fossil fuel to run the machines that make packaging required to transport food, whether it’s across the country or just down the street.
Farmers can reduce carbon footprint by simply using reconditioned bags for transporting goods. Everything we purchase at the supermarkets is shipped in – whether it come from across the county or cross-country – and typically, farmers will use these plastic bags to ship products like watermelons and corn in bulk or to get shipments of seed. Previously, farmers would just burn these bags or place them in the trash. However, reusing the packaging is environmentally efficient, and it has the added benefit of helping to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills each year.
Energy Consumption in Fertilizer Production
Nitrogen is necessary for photosynthesis to occur, so in order for crops to grow, the soil must have nitrogen. More nitrogen in the ground results in a better harvest. The easiest way to increase the amount of nitrogen is to apply fertilizer. However, if we have massive amounts of food production, we will need equal amounts of fertilizer.
Enter synthetic fertilizer.
Synthetic fertilizer is making soil nutrient-rich enough to yield more crops on the same amount of land. More than a hundred million tons is used worldwide every year. That much fertilizer has a cost.
Synthetic fertilizers use nonrenewable sources – mainly, fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizer is unproducible. As mentioned earlier, burning fossil fuels is contributing to the rise of the Earth’s temperature. In fact, producing and distributing fertilizer accounts for 1 1/2-2 percent of total global warming emissions. The bottom line is that we have an incredibly high demand for synthetic fertilizer, which is causing significant damage to our environment.
There are other options.
Ron Rosmann, a farmer in western Iowa, has been successfully yielding large crops without the use of synthetic fertilizer. Rosmann mainly increases the amount of nitrogen in the soil by planting nitrogen-fixing plants after harvesting his crops. For example, he plants alfalfa and soybeans in the fall because there is nitrogen-fixing bacteria found in the roots of these plants. When the plants die in the spring, the nitrogen is released into the soil, free to be used by the next crop planted. Simply put, he is adding fertilizer to the soil without burning fossil fuels.
Cleary, agriculture consumes more energy than most people previously realized. With governments placing more restrictions on carbon emissions, it’s important for farmers to do their part in reducing their carbon emissions. By doing so, they can also reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and save more money. If we are willing to rethink the way we produce and consume food, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will come naturally.
6 Comments on "How Agriculture Uses Energy"
Davy on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 8:41 am
Nothing new here. It is the same story everywhere with catch 22’s. Sure we can change agriculture and we should but don’t for a minute think there will not be consequences. Don’t think for a minute you can have your cake and eat it. We are a global world locked in brittle stasis economic, social, and environmentally. We are in overshoot to carrying capacity both in our dependence on modernity and overpopulation. The only answer to this is less people and less consumption. Look at 19th century and earlies way of life. If you think we can have modernism and make changes to make modernism green and sustainable then you are smoking hopium and delusional-ism.
The status quo is locked into modern agriculture at multiple levels. We are locked into food choices of more quantity and better quality because of unrestricted human nature. This is not a matter of better quality as in healthy it is more of better quality as in choices and taste like meat, dairy, and processed foods. It is luxury foods and out of season foods. Nothing wrong with these in the right mix and quantities but that is not how modernism works. We need local food with less emphasis on taste with better health for us and the environment. We need to eat seasonally not globally just-in-time with on demand cheap as possible as the basis.
Local and environmentally friendly does not mesh with our modern food culture. People for the most part want easy, quick, and tasty. These are not compatible with environmentally friendly or healthy. Local food is profoundly important. Permaculture and less complex ways of growing food are vital but they go against prevailing trends of modernism found in marketing and production. We want more for less but not the resulting long term costs that come with the trade-offs.
Society is not able to reduce agriculture because it can’t. Climate is conspiring against agriculture. Depletion is conspiring against it. Population growth is a headwind. You can’t address these issues and make agriculture more climate change friendly. We need more quantity, quality, and less environmental disruption. Think about that. Is that an unrealistic goal? Yes, it is because you can’t have your cake and eat it. It is a triangle of trade-offs. Something has to give somewhere. We can’t have it all. As long as we want more quantity for more people at lower cost with less environmental damage we will get none of them.
What you can do is leave this matrix of incongruous juxtapositions and embrace reality individually and locally. You can grow some of your own food and live closer to the land. Don’t expect to do it easily and make some or any money doing it. More likely it will cost you money. Industrial agriculture will crush you everywhere you go. It is a matter of attitude and lifestyle. Choose to live a life of less in stoicism and spartan arrangements. Downsize with dignity and find value in moderation. Leave modernism and focus on localism.
Some can live in both worlds. This is what I am doing. It is a surreal world of contradictions. I hate the car culture but live in it. I hate consumerism but use it to leave it. I am embracing alternatives knowing they are fossil fuel dependent. I am doing what I can to grow food locally and with permaculture practices but still go to Walmart and buy off Amazon. This is a strange world of contradictions. If you decided to live this way you must embrace the public/private dual personality complex. This duel personality condition can lead to neurosis because they are naturally conflicting conditions. This points to no answers to catch 22’s of modern life only bargains. We can bargain with our catch 22 predicaments. We can live a public/private life. What we can’t do is alter this reality because reality is nonnegotiable.
penury on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 10:59 am
I will gladly add a second to this statement Davy, especially the last statement. This appears to be the part that no one is willing to admit. It is apparent that the majority feel that the best way to deal with the world’s predicament is to ignore it and everything will go back to “normal”, whatever that means, which is different for just about everyone.
Apneaman on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 1:29 pm
AIR POLLUTION IN NEW DELHI IS LITERALLY OFF THE CHARTS
THE MOST POLLUTED CITY ON EARTH SCORED 999 ON AN INDEX THAT MAXES OUT AT 500
“The New York Times reports that New Delhi’s current particulate levels are as dangerous to the city’s 20 million residents as smoking more than two packs of cigarettes every day.”
“But while the spike in air pollution in New Delhi—which may be due to farmers burning fields after harvesting their crops combined with the car traffic and firecracker smoke of late October’s Diwali celebrations—is particularly troubling, people are suffering all over the country. The India Times reports that nearly 100 Indian cities have failed air quality tests since 2011.”
http://www.popsci.com/air-pollution-new-delhi
Apneaman on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 3:48 pm
Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be ‘game over’, scientists warn
New research suggests the Earth’s climate could be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than thought, raising the spectre of an ‘apocalyptic side of bad’ temperature rise of more than 7C within a lifetime
“Anybody who understands the situation we find ourselves in would have already have realised we are in an emergency situation.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over-global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html
2C is locked in and we ain’t stopping or even slowing. I can’t find the link, but at 4C there will be many days where high temperatures will be enough to denature the proteins in all the grain crops thus rendering them all but useless. Maybe the big AG overlords (Bayer-Monsanto) will conjure up a super high heat tolerant corn crop so we need not go without our daily doses of high fructose corn syrup and Doritos. They’ll need plenty of subsidies of course. Oh, and it will have to be modified to need very little irrigation too.
Sissyfuss on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 5:52 pm
55 billion animals slaughtered each year. There is a great disruption in the Force.
Shortend on Mon, 14th Nov 2016 7:27 am
The flora and fauna were adapted to that atmosphere. The flora of today’s world, most importantly our food crops, is suited to an atmosphere that never exceeded 300 ppm for the past 800,000 years
For 800,000 years (at least) natural cycles like Milankovitch cycles maintained a Goldilocks world in which CO2 levels fluctuated between 180 and and 300 ppm. In that world humans evolved and their food crops were domesticated.
Actually increased crops yields are the result increased fertilizers, increased pesticides and increased irrigation – none of which is sustainable
Increased CO2 in open environments leads to:
1) Increased predation by pests
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0800568105
2) Compromised nutritional value in food crops
doi:10.1038/nature13179