Energy and Agriculture
An Overview
“Agriculture is essentially the human activity which converts solar energy, plant nutrients and water to biomass energy by means of plants and animals.”
Energy and agriculture are deeply intertwined
Prepared within PROTAAL, a cooperative research project on agricultural technology in Latin America, this 1981 paper offers an overview of energy use in agriculture and its implications for development.
The document was prepared for the seminar “Cambio Técnico en el Agro Latinoamericano: Situación y Perspectivas en la Década de 1980” (Technical Change in Latin American Agriculture: Situation and Prospects in the 1980s), organized by IICA/PNUD in Coronado, Costa Rica, in September 1981. It is re-edited and presented by the Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation.
Energy in figures
- < 5%Agriculture globally accounts for less than 5 percent of commercial energy use.
- 175 milliontons of petroleum equivalent: consumption of commercial energy in world agriculture in 1972/73.
- 85%Chemical nitrogen accounts for as much as 85 percent of commercial energy use in fertilizer production.
- 10 timesBiomass energy production on a global basis is perhaps 10 times the energy consumed each year in the form of gas and oil.
Inside the book
Background and Perspective
- Energy and agricultural prices
- Dimensions of adjustment
Agriculture as a User of Energy
- Toward a profile of energy use
- Energy in fertilizers and other agro-chemicals
- Energy and farm machinery
- Energy and irrigation
- Energy in agricultural processing and distribution
- Energy and fisheries
Agriculture as a Source of Energy
- Fuelwood
- Vegetable oils as diesel fuel substitutes
- Biomass alcohol
- Biogas
- Biological fixation of nitrogen
- Animal draft power
- Conservation as an energy source
Annexes
- Commercial Energy Use and Cereal Output Per Hectare and Per Agricultural Worker, 1972
- Agriculture as a Source and User of Energy: An Example From China
- Alternative Processes for the Conversion and Use of Solar Energy
- Adjustment to Higher Energy Prices: An Example in Food Processing
In the author’s words
“Increasingly, adequate supplies of energy, both commercial and noncommercial, are as important to economic growth and development as land, labor and capital.”
“The fuelwood crisis warrants a high priority by the development community and every country should be encouraged to have a long-term national fuelwood or rural energy program.”
“Higher energy costs will also encourage significant adjustment in agricultural processing and distribution and, over a longer time period, in the location of agricultural production.”
“By nature of their rural orientation, biomass energy projects have the potential to affect, for better or worse, the welfare of large numbers of low income groups.”
“In many circumstances, conservation may be the most effective means to reduce dependence of agriculture on commercial energy.”
“In view of the present and likely (greater) future importance of draft animals in agriculture, this type of research and development work appears to be greatly underfunded.”
Download the PDF (opens in a new tab)“Adjustments to a changed energy environment should be equitable and equitable access to energy resources is becoming as important as access to food, jobs and public services.”