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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY
  • Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 08:20:34 -0600


FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY
by David Pimentel Cornell University and Mario Giampietro Isiituto Nazionale
dell; Nutrizione, Rome
http://www.dieoff.org/page55.htm

This excerpt is under III. Ecological constraints to food production in the
United States

At present, the food supply of all developed countries is dependent on fossil
energy. For instance, the output/input energy ratio of U.S. agricultural
crops is 1.4 (Table 4). Thus, 0.7 kcal of fossil energy are consumed in the
U.S. agricultural sector to produce 1 kcal of crop. However, the inputs used
for the calculation of the energy output/input ratios listed in Table 4 are
based on FAO statistics and include only fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides,
machinery and fuel for field operations. This totals 850,000 billion kcal
spent in U.S. agriculture in 1989. Other energy inputs are required in the
agricultural sector, such as energy and machinery for drying crops,
transportation of inputs and outputs to and from the farm, electricity, and
construction and maintenance of buildings and infrastructures. When these
inputs are also included, the total commercial energy used in U.S.
agriculture well exceeds 1,000,000 billion kcal (=1015 kcal or about 5% of
the total consumption of fossil energy in the United States) and brings the
output/input energy ratio close to 1.

Based on this estimate, the food supply in the United States requires the use
of 0.4 metric ton of oil equivalent per capita/year, or about 530 liters of
oil equivalent, just for the agricultural sector. However, this is just a
fraction of the total fossil energy expended in the entire food system.
Including food processing, packaging, and distribution increases the
commercial energy consumption by more than 3 times. Finally, also energy use
related to shopping and home preparation of food, that in official statistics
appears under the heading "residential energy use", contributes to fossil
energy use in the food system. Taking into account all these energy uses
related to the food system, the percentage of total U.S. energy consumption
expended in the food system amounts to 17%.




  • [Livingontheland] FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY, Tradingpost, 10/27/2004

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