Energy efficiency is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. The general term "energy efficiency", when applied to agriculture,reflects changes in technology, governmental and EC policies – including the Common Agricultural Policy, climate change on a broad scale and local weather patterns, and farming management practices. There is not a single measure to d...
Until recently energy efficiency in agriculture has received little attention. Nevertheless, energy consumption in agriculture is considerable, especially when indirect energy use is taken into account. AGREE has the objective of showing the potential of short term energy efficiency gains and the promise of a long term potential. Environmental effects of savings on direct and indirect energy use in agriculture ...
The reduction of energy inputs in agricultural production is a process of practical implementation of a set of energy saving (ES) measures associated with a given type of production, farm infrastructure and managerial or organizational activities. In six national reports from Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal for 13 subsectors of agriculture, 481 ES measures in total were identified...
This text is the result of the collaboration of the partners of the AGREE work-package “Economic and environmental analysis”, which is based on case study analyses of the partners in seven countries of the EU. The case studies show economic and environmental trade-offs in the different regions in the EU, for which each partner is responsible. Nevertheless prior to the reporting of the case studies an intensive ...
Nowadays, traditional farming based on achieving high yields using high inputs, shifts gradu-ally towards maximum possible crop yield using minimal inputs in an optimized way or to-wards organic farming. This is usually accomplishing by low yield of high quality products without using conventional agrochemicals (i.e. fertilizers, pesticides). In general, this last ap-proach leads to lower energy consumption per...
Improved energy efficiency is the combination of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. It includes all measures that are suitable to reduce specific components of the energy input, improving energy utilisation and contributing directly to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The AGREE project funded by the European Union aims to quantify the energy require...
This chapter presents some results obtained in the KBBE.2011.4-04 project “Energy Efficiency in Agriculture - AGREE” supported by the 7th Framework Program. It gives an overview into energy use and energy efficiency in wheat production in various agro-climatic zones of Europe. Among cereals, wheat is the crop with the largest cultivated area in Europe. In 2008, the percentage share of the area occupied by commo...
One of the EU headline target indicators for Europe is “20% increase in energy efficiency” by 2020. It is anticipated that in the following decades energy use will increase significantly and will have a widespread impact on the economy, including the agricultural sector. Energy use reduction can be achieved by reduced energy input. Improved energy efficiency, however, is only achieved, if energy input per unit ...
Energy efficiency is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. The general term "energy efficiency", when applied to agriculture,reflects changes in technology, governmental and EC policies – including the Common Agricultural Policy, climate change on a broad scale and local weather patterns, and farming management practices. There is not a single measure to d...
The reduction of energy inputs in agricultural production is a process of practical implementation of a set of energy saving (ES) measures associated with a given type of production, farm infrastructure and managerial or organizational activities. In six national reports from Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal for 13 subsectors of agriculture, 481 ES measures in total were identified...