In the previous post I talked about the 10% rule of energetics within the food chain. The potentially most efficient way to eat is to consume the vegetables directly so that we get 10% of the vegetables energy. Eating an animal that ate the vegetable only gives us 1% of that vegetables energy indirectly through the animal. That is in an ideal trophic consumption food Chain. Now consider that, especially in MDCs and fast developing LDCs, the animals are no longer raised in grazing fields. We need so many animals to satisfy the meat taste-buds that there literally is not enough grazing fodder for all the animals to eat and grow. This is where the insane economics of industrial farming come into play to increase the energy to feed the animals.
Food production Energetics – Traditional and subsistence farming gives about 2 units of food energy output (yield) for each unit of energy input (muscle power, animal dung, etc…). For farming to have been worth the effort, our ancient ancestors had to see a higher output of energy for what was imputed into the system. So for most of human history we have had this 1:2 ratio benefit in farming. But when we started bringing in lots of technology that energetics ratio would start changing, and not for the better, as we spend more and more energy in getting the chemicals for the crops.
- For much of human history, Subsistence agriculture was were a family produced only enough for itself. It is agriculture by muscle power, animals, hand tools, and simple machines, which equals hard work but you do get to have plenty of food to eat and store until the next season. If the weather doesn’t cooperate of course you could end up going hungry or worse. But since we are all here, it means that overall, farming through the centuries has been a successful endeavor.
- In the last century or so, Intensive traditional agriculture occurred when a family (or small corporate cooperatives, used animals, irrigation water, and simple chemical fertilizers to produce enough to sell extra crops at market. (the Haber-Bosch process allowed us to fix nitrogen artificially – Ammonium Nitrate – instead of relying on soil bacteria. It would be good here to note that this process is very expensive and relies on lots of heat and pressure cooking – think lots of fuel.) Let’s be optimistic and still give ourselves a positive energetics ratio gain of say 1:1.5. Energy in versus energy out not as good, But… the good news is that although we are expending more energy getting our crops we are actually increasing yield outputs, perhaps 2-3 fold. So, if in a subsistence field you were getting 1 bushel per quarter acre, the intensive Ag field is now giving you 2-3 bushels per quarter acre, but we are using more external energy (beyond photosynthesis and rotting manure) to get it.
The creation of modern Industrial Agriculture or the Green revolution is Intensive traditional agriculture on addictive steroids. This kind of agriculture involved what Earl Butz (U.S. Secretary of Agriculture early 1970s) supported – a move to big corporate agriculture and the rapid loss of small family farms. It is described by large crop monocultures, extensive and increasing use of synthetic chemical herbicides and pesticides, increasing and extensive mechanization that ALL involved intensive use of fossil fuels. Now remember, I am talking about the amount of energy input versus energy output – what energy was used to grow something (crops/animals) versus what energy is finally derived by the person at the dinner table.
When I first came to the USA in 1981, I was always amazed at the miles and miles and miles of corn fields across the American Heartland. Wow, I thought, these Americans must live off of corn – there was just so much of it. Yet, in the supermarket, it is only in a very small seasonal section of the grocery area where you can actually find any corn. Then I found out that Americans do not eat that much corn. The animals do! It has been estimated that some 90% of the corn crop goes to feed animals in Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFOs).
All the external energy now being used to grow food starts to make the yields quite high, but the energetics ratio gets screwed up. The energy ratio of output to input is now inverse to traditional Ag, about 2:1. The yield however is about 10-fold better. You might say that getting a 10-fold increase is food supply is a good thing, but think about it – in this example I am using, you are using twice as much energy input to get 1 unit output, even if the output is ten times higher (therein lies the justification to continue). And then, the ultimate in the Industrial Ag system is that the food is now shipped inordinate distances using immense amounts of fossil fuel energy (as much as 10 units by land, sea and air from all around the world – average distance food travels in the USA is about 1800 miles (2880 KM)) to get it to your plate, but with no increased of output – so the final tally of energy input to output is more like 12:1. So we started out with 1:2 benefit and ended up with a 12:1 deficit, and this is seen as good business practice?? We could get back to 2:1 easily by simply staying with LOCAL food, but our system is not set up that way – food is shipped vast distances, and this fact alone is what makes food security so fickle and dangerous (see earlier posts – making the Transition to sustainable food systems). Ah, you might say, the external fuel is cheap and abundant so this is not a problem (many use this belief) – maybe time to get back to some thoughts from the late Al Bartlett (Exponential function).
To wrap up this post: not only do we now have a potential energetics problem (12:1 input to output) some 90% of that plant output is fed to animals before we eat the animals. So we lose 99% of even that energy output. Hopefully I have been clear enough, and if you now thinking that our modern agricultural system is insane, even though we seem to have an abundance of food supply, think about it from a spread sheet perspective – What happens when the amount of input energy starts to become limiting or excessively expensive?? Some 7.1 of the 7.5 billion people on this planet are betting every day that the input never becomes limiting and that there are never any disruptions in the system for more than a day of so!!! What contingencies are in place should that break happen – None! The plain and simple truth is that our food systems, besides being far from sustainable, are also destructive to planetary processes, energetically insane and economically so mindlessly focused on profit, they must fail sometime soon rather than later. The simple assumption is that the system will somehow keep self-perpetuating itself without end. Notice that I do not tell you what you should or should not do. Knowing the basic ideas of energetics of energy and food, hopefully you will now see why I am amazed that we all act as if everything is fine. TBC………
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