Energy Analysis of the Danish Food Production System:  Food-EROI and Fossil Fuel Dependency

Markussen, Mads Ville; Østergård, Hanne

doi:10.3390/en6084170

Cited by 30 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…On-farm production of organic fertilizers was substituted by import of commercial fertilizers produced by the use of fossil energy, and manual or mechanical weeding was substituted by applying fossil fuel-based pesticides (Hall et al, 1986;Conforti and Giampietro, 1997). Altogether, the productivity per hectare was boosted with the consequence that food supply systems now uses 4-10 times more fossil energy than the food energy they produce (Heller and Keoleian, 2003;Markussen and Østergård, 2013), i.e., agriculture became a net-energy sink. If agriculture should play a significant role in the future energy system, then the first milestone to be achieved would be to become net-energy neutral, e.g., self-sufficient with fuels.…”

Section: Integrated Food and Bioenergy Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Net-Energy Analysis of Integrated Food and Bioenergy Systems Exemplified by a Model of a Self-Sufficient System of Dairy Farms

et al. 2015

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Agriculture is expected to contribute in substituting of fossil fuels in the future. This constitutes a paradox as agriculture depends heavily on fossil energy for providing fuel, fodder, nutrients, and machinery. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether organic agriculture is capable of providing both food and surplus energy to the society as evaluated from a model study. We evaluated bioenergy technologies in a Danish dairy-farming context in four different scenarios: (1) vegetable oil based on oilseed rape, (2) biogas based on cattle manure and grass-clover lays, (3) bioethanol from rye grain and whey, and (4) a combination of (1) and (2). When assessing the energetic net-contribution to society from bioenergy systems, two types of problems arise: how to aggregate non-equivalent types of energy services and how to account for non-equivalent types of inputs and coproducts from the farming? To avoid the first type, the net output of liquid fuels, electricity, useful heat, and food were calculated separately. Furthermore, to avoid the second type, all scenarios were designed to provide self-sufficiency with fodder and fertilizer and to utilize coproducts within the system. This approach resulted in a transparent assessment of the net-contribution to society, which is easy to interpret. We conclude that if 20% of land is used for energy crops, farm-gate energy self-sufficiency can be achieved at the cost of 17% reduction in amount of food produced. These results demonstrate the strong limitations for (organic) agriculture in providing both food and surplus energy.

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Section: Integrated Food and Bioenergy Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Net-Energy Analysis of Integrated Food and Bioenergy Systems Exemplified by a Model of a Self-Sufficient System of Dairy Farms

et al. 2015

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“…) or livestock systems (Pelletier ; Pimentel ), but only a few assess EROI change in time at regional or national levels (Cleveland ; Hamilton et al. ; Markussen and Ostergard ; Galán et al. ; Gingrich et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy, Nitrogen, and Farm Surplus Transitions in Agriculture from Historical Data Modeling. France, 1882–2013.

Harchaoui

Chatzimpiros

2018

J of Industrial Ecology

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This article addresses agricultural metabolism and transitions for energy, nitrogen, farm production, self-sufficiency, and surplus from historical data since the nineteenth century. It builds on an empirical data set on agricultural production and production means in France covering 130 consecutive years (1882-2013). Agricultural transitions have increased the net production and surplus of farms by a factor of 4 and have zeroed self-sufficiency. The energy consumption remained quasi-stable since 1882, but the energy and nitrogen structure of agriculture fully changed. With an EROI (energy return to energy invested) of 2 until 1950, preindustrial agriculture consumed as much energy to function as it provided in exportable surplus to sustain the nonagricultural population. The EROI doubled to 4 over the last 60 years, driven, on the one hand, by efficiency improvements in traction through the replacement of draft animals by motors and, on the other hand, by the joint increase in crop yields and efficiency in nitrogen use. Agricultural energy and nitrogen transitions shifted France from a self-sufficiency agri-food-energy regime to a fossil-dependent food export regime. Knowledge of resource conversion mechanisms over the long duration highlights the effects of changing agricultural metabolism on the system's feeding capacity. Farm self-sufficiency is an asset against fossil fuel constraints, price volatility, and greenhouse gas emissions, but it equates to lower farm surplus in support of urbanization. Keywords:agricultural transitions energy return on invested energy (EROI) external energy dependence farm self-sufficiency industrial ecology nitrogen use efficiency (NUE)Supporting information is linked to this article on the JIE website

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“…When comparing the energy efficiency in animal food production, be it for fish, beef or other types to vegetable production, it is evident that meat production is more energy intensive, regardless how it is viewed. This difference has been demonstrated through numerous studies (Liu and Gu 2016;Atlason et al 2015b;Markussen and Østergård 2013;Pimentel and Pimentel 2007). One way to explain this difference in EROI between meat and vegetable production is by comparing the production processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Energy Return on Investment for Aquaponics: Case Studies from Iceland and Spain

Atlason

Danner

Unnþórsson

et al. 2017

Biophys Econ Resour Qual

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system as fertilizer for plants. In this paper, we analyse the operational performance of three aquaponic systems. Two systems were located in Iceland, and one in northern Spain. We also analyse the energy output with respect to edible protein contents. After 10 years of partially simulated operation, the EROI of the Hondarribia, Sudarvogur and Akur systems was 0.055:1, 0.016:1 and 0.106:1, respectively. Our results indicate that aquaponic operations benefit from operating within a greenhouse and that direct electricity consumption is the largest energy input in the aquaponics systems. The aquaponics systems studied returned one half to one tenth the EROI as compared to conventional fisheries or aquaculture.

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Energy Analysis of the Danish Food Production System: Food-EROI and Fossil Fuel Dependency

Cited by 30 publications

References 42 publications

Net-Energy Analysis of Integrated Food and Bioenergy Systems Exemplified by a Model of a Self-Sufficient System of Dairy Farms

Net-Energy Analysis of Integrated Food and Bioenergy Systems Exemplified by a Model of a Self-Sufficient System of Dairy Farms

Energy, Nitrogen, and Farm Surplus Transitions in Agriculture from Historical Data Modeling. France, 1882–2013.

Energy Return on Investment for Aquaponics: Case Studies from Iceland and Spain

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