Energy and Agriculture

Toward a More Energy Efficient Food System

Ever think about how much energy goes into your food? In the U.S., it takes about 10 units of fossil energy to produce one unit of food energy.

Drought and the Food, Water and Energy Nexus

We're experiencing the food, water and energy nexus first-hand. The worst drought since 1956 will likely produce significant impacts on food and fuel prices and could cause urban water supplies in some regions of the country to dry up.

Real Food Right Now and How to Cook It: Corn

This week’s Real Food gets a bad rap -- it’s heavily subsidized and heavily monocropped, a whopping 88% of it is genetically engineered and most of it becomes animal feed, high fructose corn syrup or ethanol. But we've got a soft spot for

How to Slap Big Ag Apologists in the Face with Economic Truth

Proponents of industrial agriculture constantly claim that sustainable food is too expensive. Learn these basic economic principles so you can tell them exactly why they're wrong.

Film Review - King Corn

King Corn is a humorous and touching documentary about two best friends who decide to move to Iowa to grow an acre of corn after finding out through laboratory hair analysis that their bodies are primarily made out of corn. But this is not your typi

In Focus

Nexus Food Water and Energy

Food, water and energy -- they may not seem like they are connected but the systems that help produce and bring fresh food and energy as well as clean, abundant water to you, are intertwined.

Going Green? 12 Ways to Reduce Your Impact on the Food, Water and Energy Nexus

When going green, consider these actions which can help ease tensions within the food/water/energy nexus.

Resources

Quick Facts

The meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions. One more reason to go Meatless Monday!
The average American throws away 20 pounds of food each month or about two-thirds of a pound per person per day.
A single margherita pizza requires 333 gallons of water, enough to fill almost ten bathtubs!
20 percent of the Earth's surface water is in lakes.
A US resident uses about 11,500 kWh of electricity per year.
26 percent of energy used in homes is for lighting and other appliances
$ of a gal. of gas includes: cost of Crude Oil 76%; Refining Costs and Profits 6%; Distribution, Marketing, and Retail Costs and Profits 6%; Taxes 12%
An estimated 48 million incidents of foodborne illness occur annually in the US, most frequently from poultry, beef, and fish.
A frack job used 4.5 million gallons, of which a amount approximately 10 to 40 percent flows back to the surface as toxic water.
About 50 million Americans get sick from unsafe food each year, resulting in over 100,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.
About 40 calories of fossil fuel energy go into every calorie of feed lot beef in the US. One more reason to go Meatless Monday!
Just 2% of the nation's livestock farms raise 40 percent of all slaughtered animals in the US.
Organic farms use as much as one-third less fossil fuels than their conventional counterparts, and can sequester carbon!
One pound of cheese has a water footprint of 600 gallons.
Cooling water discharged from a coal or nuclear plant is hotter--by an average of 17°F in summer--than when it entered the plant.

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