Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
using legume rotations in organic cereals and row crops
reduced total energy use by 81.5 and 75%, respectively,
compared to conventional systems (Dalgaard et al.,
2001).
Many of the ecologically based options and
approaches presented throughout this topic relate directly
to improving energy efficiency. They suggest a number of
strategies for fashioning food production systems that use
energy in a more sustainable manner:
•
Increase the local and on-farm use of agricul-
tural products in order to lessen the energy costs
of long distance transport.
•
Expand the use of biological control and inte-
grated pest management.
•
Encourage the presence of mycorrhizal rela-
tionships in the roots of crops in order to lessen
the need for external inputs.
•
Design agroecosystems in which biological and
ecological relationships provide more of the
nutrient and biomass inputs and population-
regulating processes, and that, therefore,
require lower levels of cultural energy inputs.
•
Reduce the use of industrial cultural energy,
especially nonrenewable or contaminating
sources such as fossil fuels.
•
Use minimum or reduced tillage systems that
require less mechanized cultivation.
•
Make greater use of nitrogen-fixing crops,
green manures, and fallows.
•
Employ practices that reduce water use and
water loss in order to reduce the amount of
energy expended for irrigation.
•
Make greater use of biological pest manage-
ment through cover cropping, intercropping,
encouragement of beneficials, well-designed
livestock integration, etc.
•
Use appropriate crop rotations and associations
that stimulate recovery from the disturbance
caused by each cropping cycle without the need
for artificial inputs.
•
Introduce crops that are appropriate or adapted
to the local environment rather than trying to
alter the environment to meet the needs of the
crop.
•
Develop renewable, energy-efficient industrial
cultural sources and uses of energy to replace
fossil fuels and their uses.
•
Incorporate windbreaks, hedgerows, and non-
crop areas into cropping systems for habitat and
microclimate management.
•
Develop on-farm sources of industrial cultural
energy (e.g., photovoltaic electricity, wind
energy, small-scale hydropower, biofuels)
where possible.
•
Design agroecosystems using local natural eco-
systems as a model.
•
Maximize the use of successional development
in the cropping system (e.g., through agrofor-
estry) in order to maintain better agroecosystem
regeneration capacity.
•
Use industrial cultural energy more efficiently
by reducing waste and making more appropri-
ate matches between the energy's quality and
its use.
•
Diversify rather than simplify farming systems.
•
Reduce the consumption of animal products
overall, and for the animal products that are
consumed, rely more on livestock that are
range- or grass-fed or raised on agricultural
plant biomass that would otherwise be waste.
•
Emphasize agroecosystem design and manage-
ment approaches that store carbon in biomass or
soil organic matter in order to make agriculture
a net sink for carbon, and hence, a force for coun-
teracting global warming and climate change.
•
Reduce energy use in the agricultural sector by
regionalizing production, and putting consum-
ers and producers more directly in contact both
seasonally and geographically.
•
Develop energy-related indicators of sustain-
ability that incorporate the parallel goals of
efficiency, productivity, and renewability.
•
Increase the use of biological cultural energy.
Too often we hear the argument that without the
continued intensive use of fossil fuels, agriculture will
not be able to meet the growing demand for food around
the globe. Although this point of view highlights the
main challenge we will face in the coming decades, it
ignores both the seriousness of the problems caused by
our present methods of food production and the very real
and practical alternatives that exist and that can be
developed if research is directed toward whole-system
analysis of agroecosystems.
Nor can we rely on biofuel substitutes for fossil fuels.
The current push to develop biofuels has considerable risk
because biofuel production can divert biomass and food
•
View human energy as an integral part of energy
flow in agriculture rather than as an economic
cost that must be reduced or eliminated.
•
Return harvested nutrients to the farmland from
which they came.
•
Make more extensive use of manures and plant
by-products to maintain soil fertility and
quality.
•
Design and implement integrated livestock-
and-crop systems that harness the ability of
livestock to supply work, recycle nutrients on
the farm, and provide other ecosystem services.
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