The use of oil in current agricultural techniques
Our current techniques are not sustainable due to shipping distances, the amount of petroleum used and the amount of water used.
A study was conducted on the amount of oil that is needed in the production of each meal eaten in the developed world, and it amounted to 150 miles, or 241 kilometers, worth of oil for each meal. If an average person eats three meals a day, this equates to 450 miles or 723 kilometers worth of oil per person per day.
This estimation comes from the following facts:
Pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides are made from petroleum. Petroleum is also used to mine minerals for fertilizers, which are then shipped to processing plants that create the fertilizers. These products make their way across large distances and down the retail chain to the farmer, who uses petroleum to transport these chemicals and apply them to their fields. Every aspect of tending the crop requires petroleum, from the planting of seeds to applications of fertilizers and biological controls, to harvesting.
Transport for processing must necessarily involve grain trucks picking up the grain from the farmers and shipping it to train yards, then to large granaries which ship them to corporations for sale. Processing and shipping uses a great deal of petroleum.
Fresh produce also has storage concerns. Reefer trucks pick up the produce and keep it stored during shipment at cold temperatures for longer shelf life. Once it is picked, it must be stored at around 1 degree Celsius, often packaged with plastics which were made and shipped using petroleum products. Once the trucks reach giant warehouses more trucks are then used to distribute the products to local warehouses. The reefer trucks use a lot of petroleum (just ask any truck driver), and we ship produce all over the world. Local stores place orders and then another truck brings the produce to your local grocery store. Finally, the consumer uses more petroleum to drive to the store to buy groceries.
Petroleum in 2002 was 15.00 a barrel and in 2013 oil it hovered around 95.00 to 100.00 a barrel. The increase in oil prices is directly related to the increase of costs in food production, which results in higher prices at the store. Some people believe that peak oil is a conspiracy or a myth. If peak oil is not true then reason would tell us that oil companies like Exxon would not have to make expensive and risky ocean platforms to access oil reserves, yet they do.
The United Nations and the World Health Organization have published papers on food security, and they see the issue as a major threat to humanity. In 1900 around 1 billion people lived on the planet. In 1975 the population grew to 3.2 billion, and in 2013 7.2 billon people are on the planet. The U.N. and W.H.O. have stated that it is impossible for us to feed our world with current agricultural techniques, and that we will have to move to local food production and distribution.
Use of water in traditional agriculture
The world's fresh water supply has been decreasing for many reasons. In States such as California, farmers have used up their entire supply of groundwater for irrigation. Many of these farms now have to ship water in, which is an added petroleum cost.
Second and third world countries have very little clean drinking water, and they are not able to use the little water that they have to irrigate their fields. As glaciers melt in Canada it is predicted that in our near future we will see a great reduction in river levels, which will lead to dramatic decline in productivity in the grain belt as much of the irrigation comes from the river system. Some studies are predicting a drop of 80% in flow rate once the glaciers are gone.
Our documented projects include:
- alternative housing
- climate battery greenhouses
- permaculture projects
Our long term plan is to bring aquaponics systems to second and third world countries where food and water are issues. We have started the process of building systems in schools and it has a tremendous value in shaping our future.