Framework and Evaluation of Total Material Requirement for Food Material: Specific TMR for Food Material in Japan

Abstract

It is of great importance to consider strategic food production to cope with ongoing rapid increases in population. For effective mass food production, addition of fuel for heating, artificial fertilizers, and agricultural chemicals, etc. are indispensable. In order to supply these inputs, a large amount of mining activities accompanied with energy and mineral resources are required, and these are largely hidden flows from the perspective of the consumer. In this study, we have proposed a framework to quantify mining activities relevant to food production in terms of total material requirement (TMR), which has been applied to food material in Japan as a case study. Targeted food material were 41 types of domestic vegetables, 8 types of fruit, 16 types of seafood, and 5 types of livestock. Domestic and foreign livestock feed was also considered. The functional unit was set as “1 kg of food material to be shipped”. The results indicated that the specific TMR (kg-TMR/kg) for food material with similar production methods showed similar values. Generally, contributions by energy were dominant for vegetables cultivated in a greenhouse and fertilizer inputs were dominant for non-greenhouse cultivation. On the other hand, the specific TMR of livestock feed was relatively small compared to vegetables, with no major difference observable among the different feed types. The specific TMR for seafood production by set net fishing was relatively low compared to other fishing and the effects of fishing tools and energy were negligibly small, the effect of energy ascribed to fuel was dominant for other fishing types using boats. For livestock, the specific TMR for a beef cow was 5 〜 6 times as high as that for pigs or broiler hens.