Saving the planet - production of food

Jodie Humphries

As the world population increases it is feared that the production of food will become the main cause of climate change and environmental degradation. A UN report has said the greatest cause of greenhouse gas emissions is food production and the use of fossil fuels.

But while the use of coal and oil could be gradually replaced by renewable energy sources like wind and solar, the world will always need to eat.

Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this resource.

The systems that produce the world's food supply are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Vast amounts of oil and gas are used as raw materials and energy in the manufacture of fertilisers and pesticides, and as cheap and readily available energy at all stages of food production: from planting, irrigation, feeding and harvesting, through to processing, distribution and packaging.

In addition, fossil fuels are essential in the construction and the repair of equipment and infrastructure needed to facilitate this industry, including farm machinery, processing facilities, storage, ships, trucks and roads.

At a time when we should be making massive cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in order to reduce the threat posed by climate change, the food system is lengthening its supply chains and increasing emissions to the point where it is a significant contributor to global warming.

The International Panel of Sustainable Resource Management pointed out that agricultural production accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater production, 38 percent of land use and 19 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

The report said the only way to feed the world while reducing climate change is to switch to more a more vegetarian diet. "A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change," it read.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, said to British paper The Telegraph, ordinary consumers can help fight climate change by eating less meat.

"The Panel have reviewed all the available science and conclude that two broad areas are currently having a disproportionately high impact on people and the planet's life support systems-these are energy in the form of fossil fuels and agriculture, especially the raising of livestock for meat and dairy products," he said.

Production of food - food energy

Less than 200 years ago, all of the planet's food energy was derived from the sun through photosynthesis and almost all work was done by human or animal muscle power. Practically all of our energy presently comes from non-renewable resources.

The benefits from oil are so numerous and of such great convenience that we have built our entire way of life around its use. Now as we enter a period of declining oil supplies and rising prices that threaten not only food production and food security, but also many aspects of political and economic stability as well, the article 'Energy use in the US & global agri-food systems: Implications for sustainable agriculture' states.

Agriculture is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuel energy for everything from food production to transportation to food preparation and storage.

The increase in globalised food production, which has come at the expense of local production, is possible only for as long as cheap energy supplies can subsidise the transportation of goods across long distances. The price of food will inevitably climb as oil becomes more and more expensive and drives up the cost of production and transportation.

Oil is a finite natural resource and its global rate of production will eventually peak and begin an inevitable decline. According to petroleum geologist Colin Campbell, the peak of oil production is passed when about half of the total resources have been extracted.

Today, 90 percent of the United States' oil deposits have been extracted and the country, once a net exporter of oil, now imports over 65 percent of its oil. Worldwide, the discovery of new oil deposits peaked in the 1960s and since 1981 the amount of oil extracted has surpassed the amount discovered by an increasing margin. According to the oil giant ChevronTexaco, 33 of the world's 48 major oil-producing nations are already experiencing a decline in production.

In 2002, the US food system consumed 17 percent of the country's total fossil fuel use. The availability of seemingly unending fossil fuel resources has led to the highly unsustainable situation whereby "the US food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy".

Farming itself is the least profitable and least energy intensive segment of the entire economy of agriculture. Of the roughly 2,000 liters of oil required per year to feed each American, only one-fifth of that energy is actually used for agriculture, with the rest going toward transport, processing, packaging, marketing, food preparation and storage.

Transportation of food

The dramatic rise in monocultures and the increasingly globalised scale of agricultural production have essentially destroyed the localised food infrastructure in the United States. For example, in 1870 almost all the apples consumed in Iowa were produced locally, but a little over a century later that number had dropped to 15 percent. In the United States today, less than five percent of food is locally produced, and so food travels an average of 1,500 miles before being consumed.

In the UK, the transportation of food doesn't fair much better. From lamb travelling 11,700 miles from New Zealand, to potatoes travelling 2,200 miles from Israel, a large majority of the UK's food is sourced from other countries.

The UK accounts for more than one-fifth of the total greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, if you drink bottled water, it technically costs more than 1,000 times as much as tap water, as it comes by lorry, which means its using more energy and producing much more carbon dioxide, as well as more waste.

In the US, the transportation of food from the farm to the plate constitutes 14 percent of the energy used in the entire food system. Transporting a head of lettuce from California to New York City by refrigerated truck requires 4,140 kcal of fuel per head of lettuce, while actually growing the head of lettuce consumes only 750 kcal of fossil energy. Given that 90 percent of global transportation is fueled by oil or oil by-products, declining oil supplies will most likely impede the transportation of produce internationally. Ultimately, higher transportation costs will be reflected in the price of goods, placing many of the items we enjoy today out of the reach of the majority of people.

Hunger and malnutrition vs excessive calorie intake

While 862 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, another approximately 1.6 billion people suffer from excessive calorie intake.

The sale of processed food, which makes up 82 to 92 percent of food sales, is entirely subsidised by fossil fuels.

The average American consumes a diet of 3,747 kcal a day, which is greatly in excess of the FDA recommended intake of 2,000 to 2,5000 kcal per day. By simply reducing their calorie intake and consuming less processed food, Americans could greatly reduce the fossil fuel energy used in food production.

As in the UK, another potential energy saving could come from a transition to diets that are lower in meat and dairy consumption and more seasonally based. Currently, one third of the calories in a typical American diet come from animal sources. A strict vegetarian consumes 33 percent less fossil fuel energy.

Peak oil is a real phenomenon with the potential to turn our entire world upside down. Modern industrialized agriculture is headed for disaster and unless we begin immediately to change our patterns of agricultural production and consumption, many people will suffer. At the individual level, a lifestyle change is needed whereby we start to consume local products, rely less on oil-powered modes of transportation, eat lower on the food chain, have fewer children and reconnect with the land by participating in the growth of our own food. The future of food production needs to be considered.

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