TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy profiles of an agricultural frontier
T2 - the American Great Plains, 1860–2000
AU - Cunfer, Geoff
AU - Watson, Andrew
AU - MacFadyen, Joshua
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Partnership Grant 895-2011-1020 and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, U.S. National Institutes of Health grants R01 HD033554 and R01 HD044889. Thanks to Simone Gingrich, Fridolin Krausmann, members of the Sustainable Farm Systems project and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada?s Partnership Grant 895-2011-1020 and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, U.S. National Institutes of Health grants R01 HD033554 and R01 HD044889. Thanks to Simone Gingrich, Fridolin Krausmann, members of the Sustainable Farm Systems project and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
PY - 2018/4/1
Y1 - 2018/4/1
N2 - Agro-ecosystem energy profiles reveal energy flows into, within, and out of US Great Plains farm communities across 140 years. This study evaluates external energy inputs such as human labor, machinery, fuel, and fertilizers. It tracks the energy content of land produce, including crops, grazed pasture, and firewood, and also accounts unharvested energy that remains available for wildlife. It estimates energy redirected through livestock feed into draft power, meat, and milk, and estimates the energy content of final produce available for local consumption or market sale. The article presents energy profiles for three case studies in Kansas in 1880, 1930, 1954, and 1997. Two energy transformations occurred during that time. The first, agricultural colonization, saw farm communities remake the landscape, turning native grassland into a mosaic of cropland and pasture, a process that reduced overall landscape energy productivity. A second energy transition occurred in the mid-twentieth century, characterized by fossil fuel energy imports. That outside energy raised harvested and unharvested energy flows, reused biomass energy, and also final produce. This socio-ecological transition increased landscape energy productivity by 33 to 45% above presettlement conditions in grain-growing regions. These energy developments were not uniform across the plains. Variations in rainfall and soil quality constrained or favored energy productivity in different places. The case studies reveal the spatial variation of energy profiles in Great Plains agro-ecosystems, while the longitudinal approach tracks temporal change.
AB - Agro-ecosystem energy profiles reveal energy flows into, within, and out of US Great Plains farm communities across 140 years. This study evaluates external energy inputs such as human labor, machinery, fuel, and fertilizers. It tracks the energy content of land produce, including crops, grazed pasture, and firewood, and also accounts unharvested energy that remains available for wildlife. It estimates energy redirected through livestock feed into draft power, meat, and milk, and estimates the energy content of final produce available for local consumption or market sale. The article presents energy profiles for three case studies in Kansas in 1880, 1930, 1954, and 1997. Two energy transformations occurred during that time. The first, agricultural colonization, saw farm communities remake the landscape, turning native grassland into a mosaic of cropland and pasture, a process that reduced overall landscape energy productivity. A second energy transition occurred in the mid-twentieth century, characterized by fossil fuel energy imports. That outside energy raised harvested and unharvested energy flows, reused biomass energy, and also final produce. This socio-ecological transition increased landscape energy productivity by 33 to 45% above presettlement conditions in grain-growing regions. These energy developments were not uniform across the plains. Variations in rainfall and soil quality constrained or favored energy productivity in different places. The case studies reveal the spatial variation of energy profiles in Great Plains agro-ecosystems, while the longitudinal approach tracks temporal change.
KW - Agricultural colonization
KW - Agro-ecosystem energy
KW - Great Plains agriculture
KW - Socio-ecological transition
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U2 - 10.1007/s10113-017-1157-x
DO - 10.1007/s10113-017-1157-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85019249174
SN - 1436-3798
VL - 18
SP - 1021
EP - 1032
JO - Regional Environmental Change
JF - Regional Environmental Change
IS - 4
ER -