Are YOU eating oil, spewing GHGs?

A sector that does not get mentioned often in climate change talks is the food sector. That is, besides its consumption of energy vis a vis pumpsets, and water usage. But this is one sector of the economy that guzzles fossil fuels most, coming second only after cars. While energy usage is at 19 percent, the greenhouse gas emitted by this sector is almost 37 percent.

An interesting article in the New York Times looks at ‘solar farming’ as a viable alternative to industrial farming. From clearing crops after harvest, to tilling, chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food.

As Michael Pollan puts it in his open letter to the US President, when we consume industrially manufactured foods, we are ‘eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases’. But this cannot continue. As population touches the 9 billion in a few more years, demand will double and triple. But equally deterring will be the unavailability of energy. Cheap energy had ‘underwritten a globalised food economy’ where salmon caught in Alaska was shipped to China to be filleted and shipped back to California to be consumes!

Pollan goes on to lay simple guidelines for the American government to adopt. But as he says, change is required in the way food is grown in the field, processed, cooked and eaten!

Crop bio-diversity that removes dependence on fertilizers and pesticides, and is supported by subsidies given on the number of different crops the farmer grows; crop plants and animals must once again ‘be married on the farm’; focus on quality than quantity (yield); regionalizing food system; educating children on growing crops, kitchen gardens in schools, etc are some steps he advocates.

What is highly relevant for a ‘once-predominantly’ agricultural nation like India from such a ‘sun-based agriculture’ that Pollan proposes is that it is highly labour-intensive. It has the potential to generate ‘green’ jobs that will be at the forefront of the economy.

Rising prices and increasing imports are sure indications of the aggravating food crisis. Food security should come above any other securities. After all, without the daily ration of rice, what use would chips and cars be to anyone?