Even Giants Are Being Hurt By Rising Energy Prices

In general it may be true that if we were willing – and in some cases able – to pay more for food, then some serious problems with our food system might be solved. The same may be said of our energy system – higher energy prices will make it much easier for renewable energy to come to the fore and will encourage conservation.

The trouble is that along the path towards a better, more sustainable farming and energy system, there will be many casualties. For one thing, there are millions, perhaps billions, of people whose bodies cannot afford to conserve and eat less, because they are already at or below 2,000 calories a day, and eating a diet poor in nutrients. In some cases farmers may be caught in a double bind: higher food prices bring them less money not more – because fertilizer prices, driven by rising oil and gas prices, are climbing even faster than food prices.


So much so that, as an NPR story about a small Honduran farmer highlighted today, some farmers are actually planting less acreage (though some are undoubtedly more).

These stories, however, all too rarely point out the underlying connection – that high oil prices are driving up both food and fertilizer costs, and understanding the energy picture is vital in trying to understand the farm
picture.

The graph below is an average of the US price of several different types of fertilizer. It shows how fertilizer costs have doubled in five years, even before oil reached $100 a barrel. Nitrogen-based fertilizers,which are often the most important, are made from natural gas. But in many places, natural gas prices are roughly proportional to oil, so there is no respite there.

Post Carbon Institute