Self-sufficiency of fuels for tractive power in small-scale organic agriculture

Summary

Small-scale organic agriculture, with integrated crop and animal production has the potential of producing significant amounts of food. Self-sufficiency of fuel for farm work has been investigated closer in this study, based on a set of prerequisites that were identified as important for future sustainability. An implication of the study is that low-tech solutions are more likely to be renewable in the production. Fuel production for farm work at the farm also facilitates nutrient recycling. Draught horse power turned out to be comparable with other biofuels, and in a system perspective even more efficient in some cases. For ensuring a sustained food production social solutions for cleaning and recycling human excreta must be developed. Low-input small-scale agriculture may in theory contribute to solving several environmental challenges. The real challenges are social: how to distribute food and how to have enough labour in agriculture to manage cropping systems that gives a diverse production.