Interesting article on an important topic that summarizes research done at Cornell University which concludes that 20% of the energy used in the US is for food production and suggests that our food choices could not only substantially reduce the use of energy but also be healthier. The link to the research is subscription only for a peer review journal. The article indicates that the average distance that food travels is 2400 km (~1,500 miles) before it is consumed. Other studies not mentioned in this article have concluded that more greenhouse gases are emitted from animal agriculture than from transportation and a link to a summary study is included below.

The article reports on the study. The article itself presents the conclusions, but not much of the supportive information behind the conclusions. Also, the only mechanism identified for making the changes is changes in consumer habits, which seems to be a rather limited and slow subset of the various mechanisms possible. Agricultural subsidies for production that makes high use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, and genetically modified organisms do not get a mention.

The article is a report on a Cornell U. study of food system energy efficiency, which is quite low, that could be increased 50%. Cutting calories by more than half would also ease production and obesity problems. Reducing highly processed foods would encourage local production and cut transport costs. Using organic farming methods would reduce petro-based poisons and fertilizers. It suggests that consumers are the key to leading the way to more efficient food production, with better health as an added benefit. It is inevitable that we will have to discard a system which expends 9 calories of fuel to deliver 1 calorie of food, which our ancestors had worked out millennia before.

This is good and interesting information. It is single source, and Pimentel is somewhat controversial. So more sources would have been good.

This article is based on what appears to be one source. This story covers a lot of ground in five paragraphs. Those two issues produce many concerns.

Is this serious or a put on? Why would they think organic farming which is farming the way it was done in 1920 is energy efficient? If some people want to eat organic food and think McDonalds is evil because they follow some new age religion, that's fine with me, but don't try to force everyone into the fold for spurious energy reasons.