I decided to start my 24 hour analysis ‘backwards’, so instead of looking up the presence of fossil fuels in my usual food consumption from the morning, I started it at dinner. I am currently living in Barcelona, doing an internship here while trying to improve my Spanish. My flatmate, an Italian guy from Vicenza, brought over some friends for a Paella-Valenciana dinner.
The ingredients he used are:
So, the chicken, oil, artichokes and flat green beans all come from within the municipality of Barcelona, the farthest ingredients being only 30 km far cultivated from where I live, on the mountain of Montserrat. Thus, the emissions for the transportation from the source to the Market, where the products were bought, is quite sustainable. Especially considering that in developed countries transportation accounts for energy consumption for 25%, and out of the world’s power production of about 15 terawatts a year, 86% is derived from fossil fuels. Also, no fossil fuels were consumed to get the produce from the Market to my house since me and my flatmate only had to walk. It is very common here to go daily or 3-4 times a week to local supermarkets and markets to buy food, instead of the bi-weekly ‘Costco’ trip often done in North American cities.
Unfortunately I could not find any specific data about the percentage of energy used for agriculture in Europe, but in the US agriculture accounts for 17% of energy consumption. Practically in terms of energy, Richard Heinberg explains how to produce one calorie of food produced, on average, ten calories of fossil-fuel inputs are needed.