Food FYI
Global food systems in the early 21st century, encompassing all stages from production, transportation, processing, packaging, storage to cooking/consumption, consume roughly 30% of the world’s total primary energy.
Global food production systems heavily rely on fossil fuel inputs, direct and indirect. Solar, prior to 450 years ago (wood becoming less abundant, industrial coal mining in UK began in 1575), provided 100% of energy, direct (photons) and indirect (animal/human power, biomass for heat, with some wind/water power for processing/pumping).
Other than solar energy that produces food:
What an animal primarily needs is O₂/water/food in that order, and enough warmth (heat) to maintain homeostasis (some, e.g. tardigrades, are capable of suspending their metabolism, can stop living for a time, but…). Full stop.
In a subtropical climate (no clothing needed), human foragers (hunter-gatherers) need about 11 GJ/capita/yr (3.65 GJ endosomatic as food and the rest as biomass for cooking). Those living in temperate regions may consume 20 GJ, which includes total food and exosomatic energy (e.g. firewood). Exosomatic energy from wood consumed is about twice that of food gathered, so 7 GJ or 1,944 kWh/person/year of exosomatic energy (≈13 energy slaves equivalents) is needed per person.
For 2 million years, humans had been high-energy fire-apes before H.s.s. var. narrator started turning ecosystems into agroecosystems to maximize humans who recently (450 years ago) started burning through a planetary larder of fossil fuels (FF) for a time to increase their population 12 fold and energy slaves serving each person 11 fold (for US Americans per capita, the increase in energy slaves is currently 40 times greater than their pre-expansionist ancestors on average, so some depend upon 100s to 1000s of energy slaves as some Romans once depended on chattel slaves — human and animal, a condition that did not prove sustainable).
Global energy consumption for food production is heavily (>90%) reliant on fossil fuels (FF). Fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal) power machinery, make fertilizers, pesticides, process, provide transportation, irrigation, and all contribute significantly (≈30%) to greenhouse gas emissions (and agriculture reduces carbon sequestration, e.g. turning the Amazon into ag land).
Agricultural production includes inputs like FF dependent fertilizers, pesticides, machinery and labor (including all other products of modern fossil fueled techno-industrial society, e.g. agronomists). Tilling, planting, harvesting, and post-harvest activities depend on FF inputs, direct (e.g. diesel) and indirect (e.g. fertilizers and FF supported agronomists/farm labor/… economic system — the whole shebang).
Food processing involves turning raw ingredients into finished food products, packaging, storage (e.g. refrigeration/freezing/drying), and cooking which requires a substantial amount of mostly FF energy.
Transportation of food from farms to a consumer’s fork/spoon/chopsticks has traveled on average ≈1500 miles (2400 km).
Packaging materials also involve significant energy inputs used long term to produce mostly microplastics.
Livestock production requires a lot of energy from riding the range in your Ford V8 to industrial feed production (hay/grain), transport and processing.
The production of synthetic fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, sulfur…) is FF dependent (Haber process, mining, transport, processing).
The production of pesticides (herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides) also depends on FF inputs.
The use of tractors and other machinery in agriculture requires energy (39% to 44% diesel fuel, 11% gasoline, 13% natural gas, 20–25% electricity of which 60% is made from FF) and maybe 10% sunlight.
Irrigation systems for water-intensive crops, such as rice and cotton, are needed to grow crops in vast regions (for a time) where rainfall is not enough, dependence on diesel/electric to pump down aquafers and rivers (and to salinate soils until non-productive) are needed to grow food for a time.
Transitioning to renewable energy sources (solar, wind, biomass) in agriculture will end reliance on fossil fuels and reduce food production 10–1000 fold. [On traditional Hopi farmland that produced 4 bushels of corn and some beans and squash every 30–50 years, I could, given all FF inputs I asked for, grow 200 bushels of corn every year — 1500 fold more (I have BS degrees in crop and soil science), but not as the centuries passed like the Hopi farmer could/did.]
Reducing food waste (during abundance) throughout the supply chain is part of the transition to food insufficiency.
The belief that without FF inputs, food production can be maintained by transitioning to 100% organic/permacultural/regenerative agricultural, vertical farming etc. practices is delusional (i,e. energy-blind belief).
The current global food system is highly FF energy-intensive and dependent — it is a means of turning FF into food on an industrial scale. Transition to a sustainable food production system that involves no species extinctions (modern agriculture is the #1 driver of the Anthropocene mass extinction event) and does not impede the evolution of new species will involve (planned for or not) a rapid contraction (in 21st century) of human, crop, livestock, and pet populations (7–35 million humans or fewer) when fossil fuels can no longer (directly and indirectly) be turned into food.
For sustainable corn production in the US without FF inputs, figure four bushels/acre in Southwest with a 30–50 year fallow period, and in the Corn Belt where rainfall supports maximum corn production, figure 20 bushels/acre and 15 to 20 year fallow period for soil nutrient recovery.
Irrigation using ground water is not sustainable (= long term salinization). Yield per acre will contract 10 fold, and acreage in production will contract far more (to rainfall adequate regions on Class 1 land with needed fallow period). And in a business-as-usual culture, humans and animals will again be used as slaves (wage/chattel) to partly compensate for the loss of FF energy-slave-equivalents.
Another Systems SF Short:
The Anthropocene will end. It is likely that the last human, an elderly male, former president of the Global Green Party (a liberal environmentalist), will die in full Denial Regalia, wondering what he’ll need to do to make humanity great again.
In a million years, a lidar scan of Gaia’s surface revealed some ruins. Some debris found on Luna made a passing Omicron exobiologist do the lidar scan.