[Peakoil] Fwd: Earth Policy News - The Oil Intensity of Food

[Keith Thomas]

Here's the latest bulletin from the Earth Policy Institute.

The bulletins come every 10 days or so and are extracts from Lester 
Brown's book Plan B.

Plan B is a new type of venture in publishing. The book is available 
the usual way in hard copy, but it's also available free over the web. 
The web version is updated frequently so it's always current. The hard 
copy version is updated far less frequently.
--------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Earth Policy News" <Earthpolicynews at earthpolicy.org>
Date: 25 June 2009 11:13:45 PM GMT+10:00
To: <keith at evfit.com>
Subject: Earth Policy News - The Oil Intensity of Food

Earth Policy Institute
Plan B 3.0 Book Byte
June 25, 2009

THE OIL INTENSITY OF FOOD

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch02_ss3.htm

Lester R. Brown

Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent 
on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the 
quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an 
ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of 
oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World 
reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year.

Discoveries of conventional oil total roughly 2 trillion barrels, of 
which 1 trillion have been extracted so far, with another trillion 
barrels to go. By themselves, however, these numbers miss a central 
point. As security analyst Michael Klare notes, the first trillion 
barrels was easy oil, “oil that’s found on shore or near to shore; oil 
close to the surface and concentrated in large reservoirs; oil produced 
in friendly, safe, and welcoming places.” The other half, Klare notes, 
is tough oil, “oil that’s buried far offshore or deep underground; oil 
scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained 
from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places.”

This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for 
world food security, as 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. 
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 combined direct use of gasoline and diesel fuel 
in farming fell from its historical high of 7.7 billion gallons (29.1 
billion liters) in 1973 to 4.2 billion in 2005--a decline of 45 
percent. Broadly calculated, the gallons of fuel used per ton of grain 
produced dropped from 33 in 1973 to 12 in 2005, an impressive decrease 
of 64 percent.

One reason for this achievement was a shift to minimum- and no-till 
cultural practices on roughly two fifths of U.S. cropland. But while 
U.S. 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 percent of U.S. 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 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: 
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The ongoing export of these 
nutrients would slowly drain the inherent fertility from U.S. cropland 
if the nutrients were not replaced.

Irrigation, another major energy claimant, is requiring more energy 
worldwide as water tables fall. In the United States, close to 19 
percent of farm energy use is for pumping water. And in some states in 
India where water tables are falling, over half of all electricity is 
used to pump water from wells. Some trends, such as the shift to 
no-tillage, are making agriculture less oil-intensive, but rising 
fertilizer use, the spread of farm mechanization, and falling water 
tables are having the opposite effect.

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

The 14 percent of energy used in the food system to move goods from 
farmer to consumer is equal to two thirds of the energy used to produce 
the food. And an estimated 16 percent of food system energy use is 
devoted to canning, freezing, and drying food--everything from frozen 
orange juice concentrate to canned peas.

Food staples such as wheat have traditionally moved over long distances 
by ship, traveling from the United States to Europe, for example. 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, D.C., 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 U.S. East Coast. Most of this produce moves by 
refrigerated trucks. In assessing the future of long-distance produce 
transport, one writer observed that the days of the 3,000-mile Caesar 
salad may be numbered.

Packaging is also surprisingly energy-intensive, accounting for 7 
percent of food system energy use. It is not uncommon for the energy 
invested in packaging to exceed that in the food it contains. Packaging 
and marketing also can account for much of the cost of processed foods. 
The U.S. farmer gets about 20 percent of the consumer food dollar, and 
for some products, the figure is much lower. As one analyst has 
observed, “An empty cereal box delivered to the grocery store would 
cost about the same as a full one.”

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.

In short, with higher energy prices and a limited supply of fossil 
fuels, the modern food system that evolved when oil was cheap will not 
survive as it is now structured.

#     #     #

To continue reading about localized agriculture and urban gardening, 
see Farming in the City at 
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/PB3ch10_ss5.htm.

Adapted from Chapter 2, “Deteriorating Oil and Food Security,” in 
Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: 
W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and 
purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.
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