Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
100% self supporting with fodder crops. Combining ERA with a more vegetarian food
profile (Scenario 4) the acreage needed for food production would decrease from about 2.5
million ha to 1.7 million ha, see Table 3. This opens up for alternative production, e.g.
energy, fibre, recreation or export of food products.
What we eat also influences the energy consumed during different stages of the food chain.
Generally meat is the most energy demanding food to produce and increased meat
consumption is problematic. This is well reflected in a comparison between the different
scenarios. Both GWP and consumption of primary energy reduced with a transition towards
ERA production (Scenario 2) and with increased vegetable consumption (Scenario 4). If the
building up of soil organic matter (Granstedt and Kjellenberg, 2008; Hepperly et al., 2006;
Mäder et al., 2002) is considered, green house gas emissions could decrease with 1 500
kg
CO
2
-equivalent
s
per ha (Granstedt and Kjellenberg, 2011). Following our results some gains
were made in terms of GWP by localizing processing and distribution (Scenario 3) but not in
terms of primary energy consumption. Pretty et al. (2005) report larger reductions of
external effects from localizing production than from switching from conventional to
organic production. The referred study was for UK conditions and, in contrast to our study,
included a restriction that all food was produced within 20 km of the place of consumption.
Other sources, e.g. Sonesson et al. (2010), argue that transportation can be an important
contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the food chain but that the contribution varies a
lot. In short, food transports become less efficient the further down the supply chain you
get. The last step, consumers' home transports, is the least efficient if cars are used
(Sonesson et al., 2010), which often is the case in Sweden (Sonesson et al., 2005). The
consumers' transports of food are not included in our study, which could explain the greater
importance given to localized production by Pretty et al. (2005). Other potential positive
environmental effects of localized production include a reduced need of packaging. Further
studies also need to evaluate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other
environmental consequences of reduced deforestation in other countries for production of
imported fodder and meat products.
By signing the Kyoto protocol Sweden has already agreed to reduce its emissions of CO
2.
About 15-20% of the energy consumed is for the transportation of food (SEPA, 1997) and if
measures not are taken in agriculture then they have to be taken in other sectors of the
economy. There are thus some potential synergy effects of local and organic food
production. The relation between distance traveled and emissions of green house gasses is,
however, not as clear as one might expect. A study of the Farmer's Market concept (Svenfelt
and Carlsson-Kanyama, 2010) shows that, apart from products transported by air, there are
no significant difference in energy intensity between food bought at the local Farmer's
Market and similar food bought at a supermarket. Although the distance from producer to
consumer is much shorter, the transportation to the Farmer's Market is inefficient.
Inefficient vehicles are used and there is poor logistics whereas supermarkets are part of an
efficient optimized transport system. However, steps could be taken to make transportation
more efficient and if the share of locally produced food is increased there is a potential to
lower the emissions of CO
2
further through shorter transportation (Carlsson-Kanyama,
1999; Svenfelt and Carlsson-Kanyama, 2010).
Figure 4 presents a summary of the results presented in Figure 1, 2 and 3 showing the
relative difference between the environmental impacts in the four scenarios. Scenario 1
(present governance) is set to 1. The dashed bar in Scenario 1 illustrates the 1,3 million ha of
agricultural land abroad that Swedish agriculture depends on today.
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