Food Security And "Expended Energy"

This was a thought-provoking piece on BBC News yesterday:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is about order; the Universe is inexorably heading to increased randomness and disorder. For practical purposes, this does not have to be a problem because we can increase order locally by hard work, by expending energy. But in the process we create greater disorder (heat and waste) elsewhere. If there is plenty of energy and plenty of "elsewhere", then we don't have to worry. Indeed, for our whole existence, we largely haven't worried; in fact the whole world order, built on trade and economics, hasn't worried.

A recent study looking at Nicaraguan coffee production and processing showed that the total energy embodied in coffee exported to several countries - though not all - was not compensated by the dollar price paid for that energy. Essentially, the conclusion was that the country is exporting subsidised energy.

The orderliness required to plant, grow, harvest, process, pack, store, monitor, administer, transport, display and sell the produce in a supermarket is simply staggering, and the expended energy intense. As an example, tomato production in the US consumes four times as many calories as the calorific value of the tomatoes created.

Surely at some point, let's say between $50 and $500 per barrel of oil, it no longer makes any sense to simultaneously export and import food high in embodied energy.