With the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, undoubtedly many of us are thinking about reducing our oil consumption. The first thing that comes to mind is transportation, but did you know that agriculture in America uses almost as much oil as our vehicles? Agriculture production consumes 400 gallons of oil per year per citizen, which comes to about 17% of our nation’s energy use. Not only do tractors, harvesters, and sprayers use oil, but it’s also the starting material of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. More than a quarter of all farming energy goes into synthetic fertilizers. In addition to the production of food, oil is used to transport and cool food. The typical food item in the U.S. has traveled 1500 miles from farm to plate. According to the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, if every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels each week.
So if you’d like to personally use less oil, drive less, but also try to eat locally and organically.
