Jevon’s Paradox: Farming & Agriculture
As a result of increased automation in the agricultural and farming industry throughout the decades, the production of food, broadly speaking, increased in order to meet an exponentially growing population. However, how well does this increase in production actually meet our needs? Does it inadvertently cause waste?
To answer this question, we can turn to consumption statistics in the US. In recent years, “the US food supply provided 4000 calories a day per person” even though the average consumption was about “2500 calories per day per person”. This results in an estimated waste of about 1500 calories, which completely defeats the point of increasing farming efficiency because about 38% of calories go to waste per person on a daily basis. Granted, the US exports a large amount of agriculture and food. However, considering that there are about 330 million people in the US and that the total number of wasted calories would be 1500 for each of these people, it is unlikely that the US exports an equivalent amount of food to that statistic. Thus, there exists a great deal of waste calories and inefficiency as a result. Moreover, some negative effects of large-scale commercial farming include pesticide and fertilizer runoff, which can negatively impact nearby ecosystems. Overproducing food would then lead to additional unnecessary runoff of these chemicals.
In tackling this issue, it seems like there needs to be a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the true food needs in the US. Overproducing by about 38% reflects that farming production does not accurately estimate the amount of food consumed and exported by the US. Thus, if our food production can reflect true statistics, we can limit inefficiencies and the negative impacts thereby caused by agriculture and food production.
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