Fuel for the farm- what if it ran out?

Our farm runs on a number of energy inputs: the human energy that we all put into working the land and growing fantastic crops; the energy that we grow to produce the fertility our soils need to replenish the crops we remove from the land; the energy required to produce the materials we use on the farm; and finally, the energy that goes into our tractors and delivery van to produce and distribute the food we grow.

Our stockfree organic farm runs on much less energy than a conventional farm, and even less than an organic farm that is dependent on animals to fuel its soil fertility. We have developed a very low-carbon farm that is able to maintain many of its energy inputs directly from the land, thereby reducing the fossil fuels we import into our system.

How would we run our farm if the diesel ran out? This was a question I had to address back in 2000, when there was a short-term fuel crisis caused by oil supplies being blockaded at the refineries and no fuel getting through. Petrol forecourts rapidly ran out of fuel and supermarket shelves emptied equally fast. The country ground to a near halt and the government declared a national emergency.

A quarter of a century has since passed. A new generation has never known what running out of anything actually means. Most of us have completely forgotten that this ever happened and that life as we were used to it came near to collapse. We have become ever more complacent about the security of our energy supplies.

At the time, the crisis had very little effect on the way we operated the farm. We had recently taken delivery of 1,200 litres of diesel — enough to keep us going for almost a year. However, it got me thinking: “How would we cope if the fuel stopped for good?”

If it came to the crunch, we could continue to grow organic vegetables. Horsepower would replace the tractor and, in many ways, would be better for the land. Horses reproduce themselves, which is more than my tractors will ever do. The green manures we grow for fertility would make a valuable contribution to their feed. The horses’ manure would, of course, go back onto the land.

The acreage of cropping would have to decrease, as the horses would need a cereal feed to maintain their condition. Around 10% of our land would be enough to cover this for one animal. There would be times, though, when we would need two horses — for certain operations and for deliveries. In reality, we would probably need to set aside 20% of our land for this primary power source. Our production would therefore drop dramatically. We would also need to increase our labour input significantly.

With a 55-horsepower tractor, I can plough and prepare 10 acres of land in around 30 hours. With horse power, this would take around 150 hours — six times longer. There is another problem. With diesel power, I can complete work very quickly. This is particularly important when the weather is difficult, such as this year. A lost opportunity with land preparation can incur a delay of weeks, sometimes to the point where it becomes too late to get a crop in the ground. This would have a dramatic effect on yields.

Without undertaking a comprehensive study, it is clear that without fuel our output would drop dramatically — perhaps by as much as 50% — and our labour costs would rise significantly. Labour is already our single biggest expense. The use of tractors on the land has had a greater effect on yields per unit of labour input than any other factor since the invention of fire and the wheel. Please note: labour input. If you visit parts of the developing world and see what farmers produce on fertile land using only hand labour, yields per acre can be very high — but the labour required is immense.

There is often a romantic notion of “back to the land”: ambling along behind a plodding horse and plough, skylarks singing overhead, whispering corn shimmering in the summer sun, and all the rest of it. But the reality is very different. Gruelling hours in all weathers; physical work that wrecks the body before it reaches 40; boredom and solitude that the average modern-day keyboard operator could never comprehend — not to mention a pittance of a wage. Few people in our society would accept this today.

The conclusion is simple: no fuel would reduce our output and increase our costs. Would you be prepared to pay three times more for your vegetables for a product that comes from a truly sustainable system?

To put our fuel use into perspective, here are some figures. In an average year, we use around 800 litres of tractor diesel, around 700 litres of petrol or diesel for deliveries, and around 35 litres of petrol for small machinery used in the intensive vegetable areas — a total of around 1,600 litres per year.

Across our 150 customers (box scheme, VegShed and wholesale outlets), that works out at around 9 litres of fuel per customer to supply roughly 70% of your annual vegetable requirements. Compared with conventionally produced vegetables, this is low. In conventional production, one of the biggest energy costs is the fuel used to manufacture nitrogen fertilisers and power large-scale distribution systems.

We can make a little fuel go a very long way.