By Bernhard Dalheimer
The modern agricultural system delivers an extraordinary abundance and variety of food at relatively low cost, thanks in part to abundant and affordable energy. Can those benefits be preserved without creating unacceptable exposure to disruption?
Recent disruptions to food and energy markets have drawn renewed attention to the links between agriculture, energy, and global trade. Fertilizer production, transportation networks, and global supply chains all rely on abundant and affordable energy.
Bernhard Dalheimer, an expert on agricultural market shocks and an assistant professor of macroeconomics and trade in Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, explores how energy shapes modern agriculture through transportation, fertilizer, and biofuels, and how disruptions move through agricultural systems in different ways across regions and economies.
He also examines one of the central challenges facing modern agriculture: how to maintain the benefits of highly interconnected agricultural and energy systems while reducing their exposure to disruption. Dalheimer explores the role diversification can play in reducing risk while preserving the benefits that abundant energy and global trade have made possible.
Source : upenn.edu