Food & Energy

As our food travels down the supply chain from growers to processors to grocery stores and restaurants and, ultimately, to our plates, energy, fuel, and other resources are used at every step along the way to grow, transport, prepare, package, cook, and serve the food we eat. This energy and fuel use produces carbon emissions and contributes to our current climate crisis, the environmental challenge that is “the defining issue of our time”.

The current energy consumption in agri-food systems are unsustainable in the long term. The food industry is currently consuming 30% of the world’s available energy, with more than 70% occurring beyond the farm gate, and produce over 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (around 31% if land-use change is included).

At the same time, about one-third of the food we produce is lost or wasted, and with it about 38% of energy consumed in food systems. Moreover, modern food systems are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas. According to estimations, in the next decades there will be significant and simultaneous increases in water, energy and food needs. These will lead to a degraded and depleted natural resource base, and increasing climate crisis challenges.

High GDP (Gross Domestic Product) countries use a greater portion of this energy for processing and transport. In low-GDP countries, cooking consumes the highest share. Primary farm and fishery production accounts for around one fifth of the total food energy demand, but produces two thirds of the green house gases (GHGs). The great challenge the world now faces is to develop global food systems that emit fewer GHG emissions, enjoy a secure energy supply and can respond to fluctuating energy prices while at the same time support food security and sustainable development.

Powering Agriculture: An Energy Grand Challenge for Development (PAEGC) seeks to identify and support new and sustainable approaches to accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy solutions for increasing agriculture productivity and/or value in developing countries. Your ideas can help farmers find innovative clean energy solutions to power their farms and empower their lives.

European Union
The food sector is a major consumer of energy: the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables accounts for 17 % of the EU’s gross energy consumption in 2013, equivalent to about 26 % of the EU’s final energy consumption in the same year.

Agriculture, including crop cultivation and animal rearing, is the most energy intense phase of the food system, accounting for nearly 33% of the total energy consumed in the food production chain.

The second most important phase of the food life cycle is industrial processing, which accounts for 28% of the total energy use. Together with logistics and packaging, these three phases of the food life cycle "beyond the farm gate" are responsible for nearly 70% of the total energy use in the food system.

While the "end of life" phase including final disposal of food waste represents only slightly more than 5% of total energy use in the EU food system, food waste actually occurs at every step of the food chain. In 2014 the EU generated 100 million tonnes of food waste, primarily at the household level and manufacturing. Given the large amounts of energy involved in food production, reducing food waste is an important vector for improving the overall energy efficiency of the food system. Food waste also has the potential to play a role in renewable energy production as a feedstock for bio-energy production.

Different food products need very different amounts of energy per unit of mass depending on their nature, their origin and the kind of processing they have been subjected to. Refined products and products of animal origin generally need an amount of energy several times larger than vegetables, fruits and cereal products.

Food processes

Drying, cooling and storage
To maintain their quality, cereals are normally dried artificially after harvest and before storage and transport. Electricity, natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) can be used to provide heat at around 0.5 - 0.75 GJ/t to dry wet grain down to an acceptable moisture content for storage. Crop drying and curing can be one of the more energy-intensive on-farm operations.

Refrigerated storage, including during transport, can account for up to 10% of the total food supply carbon footprint for some products.

Transport and distribution
Given the fluctuating prices for fossil fuel prices, transport and distribution are particularly vulnerable components of the food chain. Transport, under certain circumstances, can account for between 50 to 70% of the total carbon footprint of some food products, as is the case when fresh fruit or fish are delivered by road to markets several hundred kilometers away.

Food and beverage processing
The total amount of energy needed for processing and packaging is estimated to be between 50-100 MJ (megajoule) per kg of a total retail food product. The food processing industry requires energy for heating, cooling and electricity. The total energy demand for food processing is around three times the direct energy consumed behind the farm gate. In addition, energy is embedded in the packaging, which can be relatively energy-intensive due to the use of plastics and aluminium.

Food retailing, preparation and cooking
Household food storage and preparation, an important part of any food system, consumes energy. Electricity and heat are used for essential activities. It’s estimated that operating refrigerators and freezers require around 40 % of total household food-related energy; cooking meals in stoves, ranges and microwave ovens is around 20%; and heating water and operating dishwashers (around 20%).

Cooking consumes on average globally 5-7 MJ per kg of food but in low-GDP countries it can be much higher.

Globally, agri-food chains consume 30 percent of the world’s available energy – with more than 70 percent consumed beyond the farm gate. Achieving the transition to “resource-smart” food systems will require better policy-making as well as a collaborative and proactive multi-stakeholder approach.

Solutions

The typical industrial plant in the U.S. can reduce its electricity use by around 5 to 15% by improving the efficiency of its motor-driven systems. Process manufacturing has the highest absolute consumption of electricity, 419.587 gigawatt hours per year, and motor systems account for the full 71% of this total.

Tremendous potential savings lie all along the agri-food chain from inputs (seed, irrigation/pumping, livestock feed, fertilizer) to the end user (cooking, transport, household appliances); production (on-farm mechanization, increased operational efficiencies); transport; storage and handling; value-added processing; transport and logistics; and marketing and distribution.

Discover the benefits of the Agrinergie program, a new solution provide by Akuo Energy to provide renewable energy while including agriculture.

Countless technologies and innovations can foster a more energy and resource efficient agri-food chain, and renewable energy sources can further improve the sector’s carbon footprint. These include but are not limited to solar irrigation, wind water pumping, solar/bio-energy drying and heating, solar food processing, evaporative cooling, solar absorption cooling, geothermal heating, optimizing fertilizer use, conservation agriculture, drip irrigation and precision agriculture.

For example;

Soliculture is a California-based startup that has developed LUMO solar panels designed for greenhouses. These turn solar green light into a red light, maximizing both power generation and crop growth.

Photovoltaic strips allow this pink greenhouse to generate electricity. The first crop of tomatoes and cucumbers grown inside electricity-generating solar greenhouses was as healthy and robust as those raised in conventional greenhouses, signaling that "smart" greenhouses hold great promise for farming and energy conservation.

Evaptainers is also another great example of new technology achievement within the agri-food chain. The company provides an evaporative cooling technology to the developing world food industry that requires no electricity, consumes only 1 liter of water per day on average, can store up to 60 liters of perishable products, and cools them at 15-20 degrees Celsius below the ambient temperature.

Indeed, technologies are being developed and improved all along the agri-food chain, with the potential of reducing current GHG emissions to a sustainable level.

Evaptainers are electricity-free mobile refrigeration units which run at low-cost. Utilizing the phenomenon of evaporative cooling, rather than more energy-intensive vapor compression refrigeration, they are ideal for use in off-grid rural areas with low relative humidity.

What do you do regarding making more sustainable food choices? By tagging us with #theconsciouschallenge you can share your ideas!

Want to contribute to our Ecological Footprint Bible? Submit us your scientific articles! Mail us at info@theconsciouschallenge.org

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