Eating Fossil Fuels

[Jcrowley]

The Green Revolution
In the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture underwent a drastic transformation commonly referred to as the Green
Revolution. The Green Revolution resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part of the advance resulted
from new hybrid food plants, leading to more productive food crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green
Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.

That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels. The Green Revolution was made possible by fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides, and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.
The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average of 50 times the energy input of
traditional agriculture.

<snip>

Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:
• 31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer
• 19% for the operation of field machinery
• 16% for transportation
• 13% for irrigation
• 08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)
• 05% for crop drying
• 05% for pesticide production
• 08% miscellaneous

<snip>

Using the low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of nitrogen, this equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters of diesel fuel, or 4.04 billion gallons. Of course this is only a rough comparison to aid comprehension of the energy requirements for modern agriculture. In a very real sense, we are eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way, there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994 energy input to agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only
increased 3-fold.

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[nosmokes]

1. yes,*green* revolution is truly a misnomer

admittedly, while they did raise a lot of food, they certainly nuetralized and sterilized a lot of earth. and in the course of things the nutritional value of commercially and chemically grown vegetables has dropped, not to mention the taste and texture.

go local
go organic
go fair trade

[GliderGuider]

3. Most importantly - start growing some of your own

[GliderGuider]

2. And growing more food needs more water

The Green Revolution was also enabled by the systematic drawdown of fossil water around the planet. Fossil fuel and fossil water - both of them resources under threat, with an obvious knock-on threat to the world's food supply. Globally we have eaten more grain than we've grown in six of the last seven years. What happens over the next ten to twenty years as oil and natural gas start to become scarce and expensive, and the aquifers continue to drop?

I hear the sound of distant hoof beats at night. Which Horseman could it be?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Those figures are for North American agriculture

If we're talking about the Green Revolution, figures for worldwide agriculture would be more relevant.