Workshop-seminar, 23-25 May, 2005, MEKARN-CTU  

Making Better  Use of  Local Feed Resources
Contents

Citation of this paper

New Oil material

Implications for livestock production of the decline in world oil reserves#
 

R A Leng and T R Preston*

Emeritus Professor, University of New England
Armidale, NSW, Australia
rleng@ozemail.com.au
* UTA, TOSOLY, AA #48, Socorro, Sanatander, Colombia
regpreston@utafoundation.org
# An earlier version of this paper was published in  the Proceedings of the
Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition in Australia 2005.

 

Abstract

Availability of primary resources and environmental, ecological, social and political issues are having, or will have, enormous effects on rural development in the near future. There is evidence that world oil production is close to or has peaked. Agriculture will be massively handicapped by expensive energy in the future. The global peak in production of high-quality fossil fuels is already causing concern throughout the world's economy. Barely recognized by politicians, scientists or the public, this event will precipitate a cascade of environmental, economic, political and cultural changes for which society is totally unprepared. These changes will be seen as threats and global energy peak has the potential to quickly eclipse climate change as the driving force for sustainable development. Economic growth depends heavily on increasing availability of oil for transportation, agriculture and industry and for more then half a million manufactured products

Industrial agriculture and intensive systems of animal production have evolved in an era of low cost fuel and subsidized production that maintained relatively inexpensive food commodities. This era appears to be about to end as fuel and other costs of crop production are built into the sale price of products. Land use will change with strong emphasis placed on crops for alcohol, biomass and bio fuels production, particularly in the industrialized world. This will intensify competition for grain for food, feed or feedstock. The use of cereal grains for livestock production will need to be substantially reduced. This signals a change in the direction of meat protein production away from industrialized pig and poultry and feed lot cattle to ruminant animals managed on forage and byproducts of crop production

The problem appears to be so acute that it will be impossible for the emerging nations to develop along the same lines as did the now industrialized world and all countries of the world will require a "non fossil fuel" dependent development strategy for the future. The general viewpoint is that future society will be organized in a very different way to the present time. Priorities in food production industries will eventually be on smaller, more localized and decentralized communities with farms involving multiple crops, animals, birds and fish and away from the specialized farm that produces only a few products. It appears that no alternative energy source can substitute for oil and any potential alternative technology is insufficiently developed or funded to make a sufficient contribution to the world's energy needs in time to postpone peak oil.
 

Introduction

Planet earth is under a number of interacting stresses brought about by human activity. If humans are to continue to develop [or merely exist] there will be need for a major adjustment of people's activities. Four major stresses can be identified including;

Over the past 20 years global warming has become increasingly recognised as potentially the greatest threat to the well being of humans. However, peak oil, barely recognised or stuck in "the too hard basket" by politicians, scientists and world leaders, is now [2005] creating shock waves through the world's economy. In the short term, the outcomes from peak oil may reduce the commitment by governments to greenhouse gas abatement policies. It appears that the potentially high cost of energy will, however, be a major driving force for sustainable development in the future. As every aspect of living is highly dependent on liquid fuel sources, the coming oil crisis will impact on all segments of a country's economy and in particular on agriculture and livestock farming.

The decline in available fuel and subsequent rise in price will precipitate a cascade of environmental, economic, political and cultural changes for which we are totally unprepared.

To date humans have been able to expand their population and their standard of living by

Limits to human population growth have been proposed over the years but human ingenuity has overcome these limitations as they have arisen. The standard of living has also increased, but disproportionately both within and between countries. But can all this continue?

In terms of future development, the availability of fossil energy resources is a major factor. Those countries and governments that had early access to these inexpensive energy resources were able to develop their economies rapidly. The availability of cheap energy has allowed many of the commodities of life to be produced at low cost. This applied particularly to food production. For example, grain production could be highly mechanised with fewer people needed in this area of food production, but at a high cost in the use of fossil fuel [see Table 1].With the advent of high yielding cereal varieties, world grain production increased four fold but only with massive increases in the use of fossil fuels and electricity. The improved yields were largely a result of direct and indirect inputs of oil in machinery and production and transport of fertilisers and other inputs.  The energy use efficiency was. however, markedly reduced in modern agriculture as compared with traditional systems [Table 1; Figure 1].

Table 1:  Modern, mechanised agriculture has increased grain yields as compared to traditional agriculture dependent on human and animal traction.

 

Non mechanised agriculture

[ Developing countries,
e.g. Mexico]

Mechanised agriculture

[Industrialised countries,
e.g. United States]

Energy inputs [MJ /ha]

2,318

35,132

Grain yield [MJ /ha]

28,895

60,025

Grain yield [kg/ha]

1,944

7000

Energy ratio [energy in grain to energy input]

12.5:1

2.9:1

 

Figure 1:  The energy inputs per unit of grain production in some selected industrial countries
 compared with developing nations [Pretty 1995]

The link between inexpensive fuel and inexpensive food is undeniable. For example the more developed the country, the greater the fossil fuel input into cereal grain production [Figure 1], increasing yields but at greater cost of fuel per unit of production [Table 1].  Efficient manufacturing took people away from agriculture. The resultant wealth was partially used to subsidise food production [kept grain prices low] which in turn allowed the intensification of animal production. It is also follows that agriculture in industrialised countries requires far fewer people compared with small farm operations in developing countries (Table 2).

Table 2:  Energy use by developed and developing countries in relation to the numbers of people working in agriculture [Pimentel et al 1988]


Country

Total
[1012 kcal]

Per capita
[106 kcal]

% population in agriculture

US

18400

77

2.6

Brazil

600

4

37

India

900

1

62

Kenya

12

0.6

75

Global energy peak and subsequent high oil prices provide the potential for political neglect of environmental aspects [eg: increased use of coal for electricity generation as against use of more expensive renewable energy]. It is likely to increase conflict between oil-rich and oil-poor countries[predation as a grab for fuel] and could trivialize the prevention of pestilence [eg: AIDS] and increase the poverty status particularly of the poor in developing countries, who have very low incomes and are unable to take advantage even of cheap oil [eg:  the need for cooking fuel may increase the rate of deforestation in countries such as Nigeria]. Countries with emerging economies will need to draw on cheap labor to lower the effects of expensive fuel in order to continue their economic growth

The decline in oil: a major factor limiting food and feed production.

The world is not running out of oil. The world is running out of inexpensive oil. Cheap oil fuelled the economic development [miracle?] of the industrialised nations in the 20th century. This applies, in particular to the USA that has appropriated oil at a faster rate then any other nation and is now the wealthiest country in the world. It also has the highest conversion of oil into food in the world.

Because the USA produces 5% of the world's oil but consumes around 30%, the USA will need to reduce oil use at least by 5% per year if there is to be any possibility of the developing countries securing an equitable proportion of the remaining oil. On average most of the developing countries are self-sufficient in food production but the margins of production are finely balanced. World surplus grain has been traditionally available when calamities result in potential famines. North America [USA and Canada] is the major food exporter and this has immense implications for the rest of the world. As liquid fuel supply relative to demand decreases, industrialised countries and many others will reduce their inputs into food production and increase their inputs into feedstock production for industry, particularly for fuel alcohol and biodiesel production

Background

Oil as a finite resource

Fossil fuel reserves were deposited from the residues of algae growing in warm shallow seas followed by burial as the sea floor sank and the debris was heated by the earth's heat flow over hundreds of thousands of years. Oil deposits occur in only a few of the potentially oil-bearing geological provinces. Most of these areas have been mapped and there is good information on the likely total world reserves before exploitation and to the present time [Fleay 1996].

World total oil resources [other then the hard -to-get oils in deep sea areas, or locked up in tar sands],  are estimated to be close to 2000 billion barrels. These calculations are based on already extracted oil plus the estimated reserves in known fields and a prediction of the yet to be discovered fields. The "to-be-found" oil will be in the most difficult sites to mine [eg:  polar and deep sea oil] and therefore this oil is recognised as a high-priced resource [ASOP 2002].

There are potentially 3000 billion barrels of oil in the tar sands and shale oil deposits, largely in US and Canada [Johnson et al 2004]. Exploitation of this non-conventional oil is difficult and also hazardous as it requires considerable amounts of water, is energy-expensive to extract and highly polluting. It appears to require about 2 barrels of conventional oil to effectively extract three barrels of oil from shale deposits [Younquisit 1997]. These reserves will certainly be mined in the future but with a long lead time. Optimistic estimates suggest that maybe shale oil will be a "2 million barrel per day industry" in the USA by 2020 [Johnson et al 2004]. This is less than 2% of the projected world requirement for oil, but 10% of US present consumption

The Hubbert Peak of oil resource exploitation

Following discovery of oil and establishment of facilities, the rate of extraction of oil increases until a peak in production of the field is attained and then the extraction rate falls [this is known as the Hubbert Peak and is bell-shaped]. The peak extraction rate is always close to the mid point of depletion and has become known as Peak Oil [ Hubbert 1949]. In the US the discovery rate of oil peaked in 1930. From this and the depletion curves for oil wells, Dr M King Hubbert predicted that oil production in the US, would peak in 1970 and decline thereafter [Hubbert 1956]. At that time, this concept was universally ridiculed but US [lower 48 states] oil production peaked and began to fall in 1971-72 { see Campbell and Leherrere 1998]

The reality of the Hubbert Peak concept appears to be now accepted by the petroleum industry and is being used by resource scientists/economists to predict world oil reserves and their likely depletion rates. This is discussed in the books by Fleay [1995], Campbell [1997], Youngquist [1997], Deffeyes [2001] and Roberts [2004]. Oil discoveries world-wide, peaked in the mid 1960s and have declined since and the total world production of oil [Peak Oil] has been estimated to occur in 3 to10 years [Figure 2].

Figure 2:  Current forecast of future world oil production, including non-conventional oil [ASPO 2002]

The world has been using oil at a greater rate than the discovery rate [Figure 3]; for every new barrel discovered the world is currently using 4-6 barrels. In the last two years the discovery rate for new oil has only been around 10-20 billion barrels despite highly sophisticated and accurate methodology for identifying the geological formations where oil and gas would have accumulated. Oil field discoveries with more then 500 million barrels of oil were numerous a few years ago but no discoveries of this size have been made since 2002 [there were two in 2002, 6 in 2001 and 13 in 2000]. It is widely publicised that the net present value of all discoveries for the 5 major oil groups during the 3 years 2001-3 is less then their exploration costs. [Duffin 2004, see Ruppert 2005].

Figure 3. The difference in the rate of discovery of oil and the rate of oil use in the world [Campbell 2001].

As Ruppert [2004] recently stated; "The subject of Peak Oil requires a little study to get your brain around it. However, it does not need much science except basic arithmetic".

The statistics of oil production and use are as follows:

It appears therefore inevitable that fuel will be scarce and expensive in years to come.

There is great concern among investment bankers that lack of transparency in reporting oil reserves in some countries, may hide an imminent and cataclysmic fall in world oil reserves [see Simmons 2002; Schempf 2004; Ruppert 2004; Roberts 2004]. The problem can be summarised as follows;

The major conclusion is that if this mega field of Saudi Arabia has peaked, the date for World Peak Oil may have already occurred. Predictions of the year of Peak Oil by experts are summarised by Johnson et al [2004] and Magoon [ 2002]and vary from 2000 to 2020. Most recent reports suggest 2007-2008 will be the beginning of the major decline in oil availability [see ASPO 2004; Ruppert 2004].

McKillop [2004b] summarises the world oil situation by stating that,

"world oil demand increase in the coming years [to 2010]will not be less then 1.75 million barrels /day, barring world wide economic recession through use of interest rate weapons as a response to runaway oil prices. The only potential for a real fall in oil demand is through intense economic recession triggered by massive rises in interest rates in the OECD countries"

There are few written and objective dissensions from this view point in the oil literature and for the first time it appears that the US Department of Energy is acknowledging the imminence of Peak Oil [see Johnson et al 2004]. The arguments appear convincing that there is a fast emerging world oil shortfall. This together with an increasing dependence on Russian and Saudi Arabia, to meet the extra demand, is predicted to result in inflated oil prices. The lack of available technology to replace fluid fuel will necessitate a transition to lower energy use generally, stimulation of greater energy efficiency and conservation, rapid development of renewable fuel technology and restructuring of society. Agriculture in general, and food production and distribution in particular, will be considerably handicapped and will require a total rethink, particularly industrial agriculture which will have to move gradually towards more sustainable practices.

Expensive oil and world food production

The world price of oil is predicted to rise because of a number of factors including the decline in oil production, the increasing monopoly of the oil markets, and increasing demand for oil as countries develop and populations grow. High yields of grain depend heavily on fossil fuel inputs [see Table1] and in the future, the competition for grain for food, feed and feedstock should see a steep rise in the price of grain.

Oil economics are dominated by what happens in the USA, whose economy is built around an extensive transport system primarily fuelled by petroleum. Industrial agriculture is dependent on petroleum to power machinery and pumps for irrigation and to manufacture fertilisers and herbicides on which high yields of crops are dependent. The USA has the highest per capita consumption of gasoline and an extremely high use of gasoline per unit of food production. It also produces the highest proportion of the world's traded food and being the world's largest importer of oil it has to carefully manage fuel supplies. Thus the USA is diversifying both internal energy supplies [coal, shale oil and bio-fuels] and also sourcing its supply from a diverse number of countries in order to guarantee supply. All developed nations in fact are  positioning themselves similarly to the USA.

The tragedy that is unfolding is that some of the oil and gas for the industrialized countries is sourced from developing countries that have a real or perceived need for capital, from oil sales, to fuel economic growth [often manufacturing]. At this point in time, these countries are depleting, or have depleted, their own oil reserves that will be needed for development; particularly to finance food production in the future and they will ultimately need to buy fuel and food on world markets at inflated costs. The populations of the developing countries are still increasing despite enormous annual death rates largely in Africa from hunger [10-15 million people] and disease [AIDS; 3 million; diarrhea, 1.8 million; TB,1.6 million; malaria,1.3 million; measles;1 million] [United Nations, Millennium Indicators Database 2004]. The end of oil signals an increased problem for nations and organisations dealing with these symptoms of poverty.

Any change in resource use in the USA has major implications for the rest of the world. The US accounts for 31% of global income and the next four gross national incomes [Japan, Germany, the UK, and France] together with the US account for 60%. The conclusion from this is that what happens to fuel supply, demand and use in the USA and its flow-on to the cost of food production, will have major effects on the rate and pattern of production and consumption in the rest of the world, particularly that of the developing countries. The dependency of the USA on external sources of oil means that its foreign policies are influenced at all times by oil politics. It also means that oil security may take precedence over food supply that is surplus to US needs, especially those foods that are exported.

The USS uses close to 20 million barrels of oil per day and as discussed later the ultimate world peak production of all liquid fuels is estimated to be close to 90 million barrels per day. There are some 200 million vehicles in the USA, about a third of the total in the world [630 million]. Ivanhoe [1998] put the situation of the dependency of people in the US succinctly, when he pointed out the dependency of urban dwellers on the two-week turn over of food and fuel in the major cities. The US consumption of petroleum products in 1998 [Table 3] emphasises that transportation has the greatest demand which is closely associated with the extent of urbanisation.

Table 3: Oil resources use in the USAas an example of the pattern in most developed countries [Data source, Ivanhoe 1998] 

Sector

Million barrels per day

Transportation

11.68

Industrial Feed Stock

4.61

Residential and Commercial

1.13

Electric Utilities

0.29

TOTAL

17.70
Food, feed and feedstock
A consequence of scarce and expensive oil is the increasing development of fuel alcohol. In the US, alcohol production has been increased apparently to supply an oxidant to add to gasoline to reduce polluting emissions from vehicle exhausts. However, increasingly alcohol is being targeted as a petroleum extender. Production of alcohol in various countries is shown in Figure 4.Alcohol is produced by the fermentation of sugar usually derived from maize and sugar cane which are only produced at considerable outlay of fossil fuels. As pointed out by Pimentel [2001], alcohol production from maize, on a volume to volume basis, uses as much energy from oil as it produces in alcohol. The proponents of fuel alcohol production justify the industry largely on the basis of the reduced air pollution in cities [and reduced health costs] and the value of the fermentation byproducts [see Shapouri et al 1995].Alcohol production from sugar cane yields more energy in alcohol then is used in production so long as the bagasse is also transformed into an exportable energy source [see Pimentel 2001]


Figure 4: Global tendencies in production of alcohol (Berg 2003]

The energy balance of maize or sugar cane to alcohol does not take into account the costs of: 

Alcohol production will undoubtedly provide alternative markets for grain and much of the 'set-aside land' in industrialized countries will be used for this purpose. It is estimated that 12% of the maize production in the United States will be diverted from animal and human food/feed to alcohol production. This will surely "dry up" world surplus grain and challenge the world's chances of avoiding mass starvation if food shortages occur in the developing nations particularly in Africa. Many countries are now actively encouraging the development of fuel ethanol industries [see Berg 2001].

Figure 5: Past and future trends for conversion of maize to alcohol in USA [Pearse Lyons and Bannerman 2001]

It appears inevitable that grain prices will increase throughout the world. Inexpensive grain will become scarce in a world where large numbers of resource-poor people already suffer under-nutrition and mal-nutrition. At the same time as the competition for grain for food feed or feedstock intensifies it is likely that many of the inputs to grain farming will increase in price in line with fuel prices .Inevitably North American and European subsidies on grain production [which are as high as 28% of the cost of production] will be removed. The higher costs of inputs, lowered subsidies and competition for end use, together with the potential for the environmental costs to be added to the cost of grain production will ensure that the world price will be high and availability for feeding animals will be reduced.

If grain is to meet the proposed increase in industrialised pig and poultry industries foreseen in the Livestock Revolution [Delgado et al 1999] then this will need to compete with the ever increasing demand for feedstock for alcohol. Much of the set aside land in Europe and America may have to be brought back into production to meet the feedstock requirements;  but in the developing countries there is no such land available other then the dangerous option of moving into marginal lands and clearing rain forests.

In 2000 in the European Union, 3.9 million hectares of agricultural land were set-aside on which feedstock for alcohol and bio fuel could be grown. These land areas could produce 1.2-5% of total transport fuel consumption [Gunter Hanrerich 2002 see FO Lights 2002]. This demonstrates the small role set aside land will play when oil becomes scarce and prices rise. Bio-fuels such as oil from vegetable oil seeds, coconuts or oil palm can have only limited application to transport energy because of the size of the requirements and also because they are also produced with inputs of fossil fuels and the land use for oil crops will compete with land use for food crops. Despite the obvious problems it is apparent that many countries and especially the US are pursuing the alcohol option and there is mounting interest in bio-fuels all over the world. On small farms in developing countries there are options to use producer gas generated from crop by-products [Preston and Leng 2004].

Estimates in the US are that by 2010 some 50 million tonnes of grain will be converted to alcohol [Figure 5]. This is close to the present exportable grain surplus (about 60 million tonnes) from that country.

Figure 6: World production and demand for maize [Rameker 2004]

The related problem is that, as is the case with oil, world demand exceeds the supply (Figure 6), with the result that world stocks have steadily declined over the past few years [Figure 7] and production per capita is in decline [see Figure 8].

Figure 7: Trends in world stocks of maize [Rameker 2004]

 


Figure 8:  The decreasing world per capita grain availability [Brown 1999]

The same trend is seen for China, the country whose high rate of economic growth is fueling the demand for grain as well as for oil. But demand over the past 4 years has increasingly exceeded production with the result that the shortfall has had to be made up from the reserve stocks. In 2005, it is expected that China will be a net importer of maize (Rameker 2004). Current world stocks are the lowest for 30 years [Brown 2004]. Thus the future for feed grains, [the picture for soy beans is similar (Rameker 2004)], is likely to mirror that for oil, with a steadily increasing gap between supply and demand, and therefore increasing prices. The repercussions on the intensive animal feed industries are likely to be dramatic and contrary to the optimistic predictions of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC (Delgado et al 1999).


The future role of ruminants in meat production

As the energy crisis evolves it is likely that specialised agricultural systems providing single commodities to extensive markets will be gradually displaced by mixed and integrated crop and animal farming guided by modern "permaculture" principles and targeted for local consumption. Many rural communities in the industrialised world will need to be reinforced at the expense of suburban development, as their roles in local food production increase. The shift from industrialised farming to sustainable agriculture in Cuba, following the loss of cheap oil from the former Soviet Union in 1989, may be an example of the strategy that will evolve in the developed countries [see Funes et al 2002]. In the developing countries, small integrated farming systems appear to offer the greatest scope to maintain food production [Preston and Leng 2004]. Ruminant production from dispersed production systems in rural settings based on roughage and agro-industrial by-products appears to hold a major hope for meeting the demand for large quantities of medium to high quality protein for human consumption at affordable prices [Leng 2002; 2004].
 

Conclusions

The bottom line

It is appropriate to finish with a number of quotes from distinguished petroleum scientists.

C J Campbell [2001] in discussing the decline in oil wrote:

"All this is incredibly obvious [the decline in oil and its effects on the price of world oil]. The inexplicable part is our great reluctance to look reality in the face and at least make some plans for what promises to be one of the greatest economic and political discontinuities of all time" [Campbell 2001].

W Youngquisit [1997] in discussing future share of resources in the world wrote:

" If China used oil on a per capita basis at the same rate as the United States, the Chinese alone would use approximately 81 million barrels of oil a day, which is 10 million barrels more than the entire present world oil production . The pleasant 'Petroleum Interval' will also bypass most of the more then three quarters of a billion people [now 1 billion] in India, as well as many people in Africa and South America. These "oil-less" people will only get a passing distant glimpse of the benefits which oil bestows on the fortunate people who have substantial access to it and it could be added, people who use it with conspicuous lack of restraint.]

Peak oil, is a turning point for mankind as the 100 years of growth ends [growth in GDP and growth in energy use are highly related]. Populations in developing countries will also peak as resources limit the generation of food and facilities. The period during the decline in oil will be a period of high tension with great potential for dominance by those industrial nations with the most to lose [see Ruppert 2004]. Priorities must shift from conspicuous resource exploitation to self-sufficiency and sustainability of food production and the environment.

The greatest issue in the world appear to be how to use oil efficiently from now on? The first step would be to reduce the flagrant and conspicuous use of oil in transportation. The second, to enact policies to remove incentives for urbanisation of rural people and de-urbanise the cities and make the rural settings more attractive to bring people back into agriculture as the decline of oil starts to have its effects. The search must continue for new renewable energy sources. Harnessing solar energy appears to be the most logical, but the requirement of the world for liquid fuel is not easily obtained from solar generated power. Recent developments of alternative renewable fuels will all contribute to meeting energy requirements. Harnessing these energy sources seems to be potentially possible with new technology such as the use of silicon generated from sand using dispersed energy capture technology [Auer 2004]. However, there remains the problem that just to replace the oil using vehicles in the UK with vehicles running on hydrogen alone would require the construction of 100 nuclear plants or 100,000 wind turbines [Oswald and Oswald 2005]. There is no cheap fix for the energy of the future.


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