Food system drove decline in U.S. per capita energy use between 2002 and 2007

The U.S. food system uses a substantial share of the national energy budget. In 2012, the food system used 11.9 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu), representing 12.5 percent of the 95.2 quadrillion Btu of total energy used. Not only does the food system use a large share of energy, it can also drive national trends in energy use due to its higher responsiveness to changes in energy prices. Evidence of the food system’s ability to drive energy use is clear when the data are expressed on a per capita basis to remove population-driven changes. Between 2002 and 2007—a period of rising energy prices—nonfood-related energy use increased by 2.5 million Btu per capita, while food-related energy use showed a cumulative per-capita change of -5.3 million Btu, equivalent to each American using about 48 gallons less gasoline over this 5-year period. One reason for the increase in non-food related energy use is that purchases of non-food goods outpaced food purchases during that time. Food-related energy reductions caused national average per capita energy use to decline by 2.7 million Btu between 2002 and 2007. This chart appears in "The Relationship Between Energy Prices and Food-Related Energy Use in the United States" in ERS’s Amber Waves magazine, June 2017.