| Call it official: I am officially a David Pimentel fan. Pimentel, a professor at Cornell, has been doing research for years about the link between food production and oil. In a new study, he describes how food production energy needs could be cut in half. And, since about 19% of fossil fuels go to our food (about the same amount used for cars), a 50% savings would be significant!
The funny thing? If we followed Pimentel's recommendations, we'd not only use less fossil fuels... we'd also be healthier! |
For example, the researchers recommend:
- Eat less and cut down on junk food: To produce the typical American diet requires the equivalent of about 500 gallons of oil per year per person, says the study. Americans, on average, consume about 50 percent more calories than recommended by the federal government for optimal health and get one-third of their calories from junk food. Eating less and cutting down on junk food would use significantly less energy, considering all the processing, packaging and transportation costs saved.
- Eat less meat and dairy: We use 45 million tons of plant protein to produce 7.5 million tons of animal protein per year, according to Pimentel. Switching to a vegetarian diet, he says, would require one-third less fossil fuel than producing the current animal-based American diet.
- Eat more locally grown food: Food travels an average of 1,500 miles before it is eaten. "This requires 1.4 times the energy than the energy in the food," Pimentel said. A head of iceberg lettuce, for example, which is 95 percent water, provides 110 calories and few nutrients. Irrigating the lettuce in California takes 750 calories of fossil energy and shipping it to New York another 4,000 calories of energy per head, according to the analysis. Locally grown cabbage, on the other hand, requires only 400 calories to produce and offers far more nutrients, not to mention it can be stored all winter long.
- Use more traditional farming methods: Pimentel's team also shows how using methods to reduce soil erosion, irrigation and pesticide use, through such things as crop rotation, manure and cover crops, could cut the total energy now used in crop production.
About those "more traditional farming methods"? Some may even call them organic! In fact, the farming methods used by the Rodale Institute achieve a 2/3 reduction in oil needs if you compare a conventional method that includes tilling to organic no-till farming. About throwing less out... here's an area where I know I'm guilty. We produce a LOT more food than we need, and certainly more food than we eat in the U.S. Storing food at home and using it before it goes bad, or ordering smaller portions at restaurants can go a long way to reducing the amount of food thrown out - and thus the amount of food we need to produce.
Unfortunately, to actually achieve this 50% reduction in energy needs for food production, we need to take this knowledge on step further and put it into policy. How about following this advice in school cafeterias? What about revising commodity policy to reflect the work of David Pimentel and The Rodale Institute? That is what I dream of. Until then, I don't predict any change unless it is a minor, incremental one.
Last, here's some credit where credit is due: The study's co-authors are Sean Williamson, Courtney Alexander, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Caitlin Kontak and Steven Mulkey, all Cornell Class of 2007. The study is published in the journal Human Ecology. |
