Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Focusing on corn in Delaware, this study aims to determine the energy intensity of food production. By calculating the Energy Footprint of Food (EFF) of such crop as corn, this paper seeks to synthetize the link between food and energy in such a way that information on the energy-intensity of products is 1) made readily available to consumers, and is 2) expressed in a standard unit (BTU) to allow for comparison between products.

This study develops a geospatial approach for estimating the direct energy use for food production, i.e., the Energy Footprint of Food (EFF), and tests it for one crop in one U.S. state, i.e., field corn in Delaware. This study constitutes a stepping stone for the development of a standardized method to calculate the EFF of different products. As such, every step outlined in this paper were designed to be replicated and applied to crops other than corn and to other states.

Data availability was critical guided the identification of an efficient method of estimating the EFF. Indeed, Delaware was chosen because of its relative small size (with only three counties) with publicly-available high-resolution geospatial datasets and with corn as the dominant crop type.

Preliminary results show that the energy used in field operation and that used in the drying process of corn is the largest energy component of corn production on small farms and large farm, respectively. Moreover, producing corn on large farms is more energy-efficient than on small farms. Of the three counties in Delaware, Sussex county has the highest energy consumption for corn production while Kent has the lowest. On average in Delaware, the EFF of corn includes 42,789 MWh of electricity, 4.2 million gallons of diesel, 1.4 million gallons of gasoline, and 3.1 million gallons of LPG, or a total of 100,267 BTU per corn bushel.

The EFF assessment can inform consumers about the energy needed to produce food and provide useful insights for stakeholders and policy makers to develop more sustainable strategies for the food industry. The methodology proposed here to calculate the EFF is based entirely on public data and is likely generalizable to most other states and crops.