Role for electricity in agriculture

Technical Report · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:6252628

Burwell, C C

Agriculture evolved from a family way of life to a family business for successful farmers and is now in transition toward becoming a corporate business activity. Productivity has always been the measure of a successful farm operation. This report examines current trands in agricultural practice that lead to higher productivity and the implications of those trends for the use of electricity in agriculture. Major current trends are in irrigation (even in naturally watered areas), in the use of pressurized systems for distributing irrigation water, and in no-tillage cropping and its related substitution of agricultural chemicals for machine operation in the field. The forces that led to the increase in the fraction of primary energy provided as electricity in agriculture (to its current level of about 22 percent) seem likely to persist well into the future. Manufacturing sectors peripheral to agriculture - farm machinery, petroleum refining, agricultural chemicals, food processing - also exhibit an increasing use of electric technology, thus signifying a growing importance for electricity in the activities affecting food supply.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Inc., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76OR00033
• OSTI ID: 6252628
• Report Number(s): ORAU/IEA-85-5(M); ON: DE86007095
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
296000* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Electric Power
AGRICULTURE
ELECTRIC POWER
INDUSTRY
MANUFACTURING
POWER
PRODUCTIVITY
USES