Energy and Food

1. Energy and Food The Basis of Everything.

2. The Common Denominator • All energy comes from the sun. Some small quantity may be stored in wood, coal, oil—but the sun is the ultimate source. • The ecosystems of the world have evolved to exploit the available energy. If there is a surplus—life forms will evolve to use it; if there is a reduction, then the system will degrade to use less energy.

3. Things to know • You cannot make or destroy energy, but you can transform it, so that sunlight is transformed into sugars that provide energy to those that consume them. • You call energy food and it is the forms of natural substances that your body can break down into various building blocks and fuel. Unlike a plant, you are not a primary energy user, but a secondary one

4. What is Agriculture? • It is the selective re-channeling of energy through plants and animals to convert a larger proportion into useful energy (which means food) • This almost always involves some reduction in diversity because of the selection of specific plants and animals. • This knowledge began around 10,000 BC in the Neolithic Revolution. Even in Ancient Egypt it was not possible to produce more than about a 5% surplus to feed all non- agricultural people.

5. The Agricultural Surplus • The key to civilization, especially the growth of towns, has been the generation of a “surplus” of food. • For this, you have to break the ratio between the amount of energy available to cultivate crops, and the amount of energy those crops return. This is the measure of Energy Productivity.

6. Productivity • Is a ratio: it can be the productivity of land or labor or capital. What do you get back for what you put in? • The key limitation was human labor, and farmers always sought to minimize that, though at the same time, trying to minimize risk. • So, traditional farmers always considered the best returns to labor (labor productivity)

7. Traditional Agriculture • Is most often constrained by labor, and it tries to put Nature to work as far as possible, and reduce human labor input. • The only exception to this was the use of slaves, or the possibility of favorable irrigation, and early civilizations relied on both. • The “progress” of agriculture has been increasing the productivity of land and labor; more per acre, more per farmer.

8. Progress • Throughout 99% of human history, virtually all human energy has gone into feeding oneself and one’s family. • This is called “Subsistence Agriculture.” • The big breakthroughs came with the Neolithic Revolution; the Agrarian Revolution, and the Technological/genetic Revolution. • Let’s look at the progress.

9. Time and Space America’s past, or a poor country today. • The developed world has gone through a progress over time from a dependence on human/animal labor, to fossil-fuels and machines, • This gradient still exists in space in the geographical distribution of rich and poor countries (i.e. the poor countries still use the “technology of the past.”)

10. Productivity allowed… • Large numbers of people to leave the land without reducing the output enabling cities to develop and grow. • One farmer to go from providing for his family, to providing for 80-100 people through the use of machines enabling one person to cultivate many acres. • The land to yield more per acre through fertilizers, pesticides and genetics.

11. How was this achieved? • In the Neolithic Revolution by concentrating energy in certain plants: a revolution of land and labor. • By using animals for cultivation. • In the Agricultural Revolution by tapping into the energy of fossil fuels and the use of machines. A revolution of capital and the machine. • In the Green Revolution, by concentrating more of the plant’s energy use into producing food. A revolution of science.

12. And, at what cost? • “Modern” Agriculture is very dependent on using non-renewable fossil fuels. • The energy is imported across the farm boundaries, and the food is exported across the boundaries. In traditional agriculture, all energy was local and renewable. • The cost of energy is not based on its wasting nature. This allows us to put 8 times more energy into agriculture than we get out.

13. The Key to Progress • Has been the transformation of agriculture by the application of capital to the previous formula of land and labor. • But the capital is non-sustainable and wasteful? • Modern agriculture is very susceptible to the cost of fuel, but can also grow fuel. • “Modern Agriculture” is the model for the world. Does it make sense?