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Page added on November 30, 2011
US FAO: Food Production Must Cut Fossil-Fuel Dependence
The global food system needs to cut its dependence on fossil fuels to feed a growing world population, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Reliance on fossil fuels to grow, process and store food could limit the ability to meet increasing demand as the world population expands, the Rome-based UN agency said in an e-mailed statement today.
Food production, from farming to consumption, accounts for about 30 percent of world energy use, the FAO said. Energy used on farms for pumping water, housing livestock and plowing fields amounts to about 6.3 percent of food-production energy use, according to the agency.
“There is justifiable concern that the current dependence of the food sector on fossil fuels may limit the sector’s ability to meet global food demands,” the FAO wrote. “The challenge is to decouple food from fluctuating energy prices.”
The use of more fuel-efficient engines, cutting back on plowing, applying compost and monitoring irrigation are among the measures that can be taken on farms, the FAO said.
There must be “significant action” to reduce food losses, which will improve energy use in the agri-food chain, FAO said. The transition to “energy-smart agriculture” needs to start now, the agency said.
5 Comments on "US FAO: Food Production Must Cut Fossil-Fuel Dependence"
dsula on Wed, 30th Nov 2011 2:04 pm
Better: There must be “significant action” to reduce population.
BillT on Wed, 30th Nov 2011 2:44 pm
When it takes 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food, we are way beyond returning to the old type farms where the exchange was closer to 1 calorie to produce 3-5 calories of food.
We cannot go back. There are 7 billion reasons why…and all of them are alive today. But, we will go back, at the cost of wars, famine, disease and starvation.
basil_hayden on Wed, 30th Nov 2011 3:19 pm
This article is so half-assed backwards. What we NEED to do is cut our fuel production from food dependence, a la ethanol. Then we can cut the fossil-fuel use in food production, maintain two seperate loops, cutting food production to discourage population growth while increasing employment. Then the necessity called food and the luxury called fuel will be in their rightful places.
Kenz300 on Wed, 30th Nov 2011 4:46 pm
The ever growing world population is not sustainable.
jodell8964 on Wed, 30th Nov 2011 8:02 pm
How does the FAO plan to fertilize the fields where crops are grown? I read somewhere that it takes 500yrs for mother nature to grow ONE INCH of top soil. Topsoil reserves are depleting so quickly that peak topsoil may be behind us. Growing enough food for the population without FF fertilizers is a pipe dream!