Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
35
6
Primary energy/capita
Primary energy/ha
32
30
5
25
4
20
17
3
15
10
10
2
9
10
5
5
1
5
3
0
0
1
2
3
4
Fig. 3. Consumption of primary energy resources in four scenarios, GJ primary energy
resources per capita and GJ primary energy resources per ha.
Scenario
The black diamonds represent the required area for agricultural production, million hectares.
4. Discussion
Below environmental and health consequences of different farming regimes and the role of
collaboration and consumer demand for sustainable food systems are discussed.
4.1 Environmental aspects of eco-local food systems
According to the Swedish Environmental Advisory Council a diet consisting of two thirds
animal products results in four times larger emissions of nitrogen from the agriculture into
the water and air compared to a fully vegetarian diet (MVB, 2005). Edman suggests
increased shares of local organic food and increased shares of vegetables and a change of
meat consumption from monogastric to ruminant meat to reduce the contribution to global
warming from the food chain (SOU, 2005). Our study provides results in support of this.
The main objective of our consumer survey was to gather data for an environmental impact
assessment of an “eco-local” food basket. A food basket consisting of 73% organic food (33%
local and organic) and a higher than average proportion of vegetables (100% more) reduced
nitrogen surplus with 18 to 37% per capita compared to an average Swedish consumer
(Scenario 4 vs. Scenario 1) depending on calculation method used. Thus, not only
production methods but also consumption patterns determine the environmental impact.
Simply turning conventional production into a system of ERA without changing
consumption patterns would also result in substantial cuts in nutrient emissions. To
produce this would however require an additional 2.3 million ha of arable land. This
corresponds to a 94% increase and this larger area of arable land is not available in Sweden.
Historically the maximum agricultural area in Sweden was about 3.3 million hectares and
taking more than this into production again is unlikely. When interpreting the results, it is
also important to bear in mind that a large area outside of Sweden is used to produce
mainly fodder for the Swedish agriculture. Johansson (2005) finds that 3.74 million hectares
are used today for producing food consumed in Sweden. This implies that more than one
million hectares are used abroad and that conventional agriculture of today makes use of a
larger area than is actually available in Sweden. The ERA-farms are, on the other hand 85 -
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