Energy Analysis of Organic Farming in Andalusia (Spain).

High oil dependence and energy inefficiency are structural characteristics of industrialized agricultural systems. In a context of climate change and growing energy shortage as the present one, energy indicators should be increasingly taken into account as measures of environmental sustainability, efficiency, and technical-productive viability in analyses and decision-making processes in the field of agriculture. One of the most relevant characteristics of agriculture is its capacity to transform energy and to generate an energy "surplus" that has very diverse uses (human feeding, animal feeding, fertilization, etc.). This energy surplus is potentially greater in organic farming. However, empirical studies analyzing the aggregate energy performance of organic farming and allowing an assessment of the scope and energy limitations of this type of production are few. This work analyses the energy performance of organic farming in Andalusia, the southern region of Spain, both in an aggregate form and by large groups of crops, through the energy assessment of its output, inputs and energy efficiency (ER). The energy ratio of Andalusian organic farming in 2005 was estimated by 1.40, the extensive crops (2.86), horticultural crops (0.18), citrus fruits (0.39), subtropical fruits (0.85), other fruits (1.64), nuts (0.54), olive (2.08), and vine (0.76). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]