The world’s energy and food systems must be transformed to cope with growing demand; to become more inclusive, secure, and sustainable; and to come into alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

The transformation pathways of the two systems are deeply entwined: Agri-food systems consume about 30% of the world’s energy, and a third of agri-food systems' emissions of greenhouse gases stem from energy use.

In developing countries, a smaller share of energy is used on the farm and a greater share for cooking. In fact, about 35% of the population still used wood fuel for cooking in 2019, leading to health and environmental damage that is disproportionately borne by women and children.

Worldwide, energy consumption in agri-food systems increased by more than 20% between 2000 and 2018. A key driver of that growth was mechanisation in Asia in the form of irrigation pumps, farm machinery, processing equipment and inputs such as fertilisers. Energy use in Africa, which hosts around 15% of the global population and faces growing food demand, has remained largely constant, accounting for only about 4% of global energy consumption in agri-food systems. Limited access to energy at each step of the agri-food system limits the ability of farmers and agri-enterprises to raise productivity, cut losses and cope with a changing climate and other shocks.

Renewable energy for agri-food systems

Renewable energy can play a critical role in meeting needs for electricity, heating, cooling and transport needs of food systems in both developed and developing countries. Various renewable energy applications being deployed along agri-food chains are demonstrating the benefits of such solutions.

Solar irrigation, among the most mature applications, is being widely adopted to improve access to water, thus enabling multiple cropping cycles and increasing resilience to changing rainfall patterns. Life-cycle emissions for solar-powered water pumping are estimated to be 95% to 98% lower than for pumps powered by grid electricity or diesel fuel.

Renewables-based agro-processing systems, stand-alone or based on mini-grids, offer an increasingly cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. However, adoption of renewables for agro-processing remains at an early stage.

Geothermal energy, too, is being used to meet thermal and electricity needs for agri-processing.

Cold storage and refrigeration are a necessity at every stage of the agri-food chain to increase shelf life, cut losses, and maintain the quality of products from crops, livestock and fisheries. Losses disproportionately occur in the “first mile” between harvesting and processing; such losses are estimated to account for 37% of the food products lost in Sub-Saharan Africa. Improving access to refrigeration could prevent spoilage of up to a quarter of the perishable foods currently produced in countries with less-developed cold storage infrastructure.

Renewables-based solutions offer several advantages, including decentralised cold storage capable of reaching smallholder farmers and remote fishing communities. Various technological options are available.

Sustainable bioenergy is an important renewable energy resource that can meet needs for electricity, heat and transport fuels within the agri-food sector and beyond. Biomass by-products from agri-food activities can be used to produce energy for processing, storage and cooking. Residues generated from crop production and livestock can be an important source of bioenergy while considering the competing end uses (e.g. as animal feed). Manure and agro-processing materials can be utilised to produce biogas at various scales and for different purposes, including for cooking and lighting and in commercial and industrial establishments. Biogas power plants operate in several sectors of the economy, including sugarcane, cassava, slaughterhouses and food processing.

Several common challenges exist for scaling up renewable energy applications in food systems. Siloed policy making and planning is chief among them. Another common obstacle is a techno-centric approach to the deployment of renewable energy, as opposed to a value-chain approach that considers factors such as forward and backward market linkages, data limitations, lack of access to end-user and enterprise financing, insufficient technical and management capacity among agri-enterprises, poor awareness, and the particular difficulties that women-led enterprises have in accessing solutions.

Recommendations for decision makers

This report offers a set of recommendations for decision makers:

1. Improve the data and information base through existing and new tools to guide renewable energy investments in food systems and inform policy makers. The effort should include mapping optimal locations to boost the benefits that renewable energy investments can bring to food systems, complemented by comprehensive cost-benefit analyses that consider the environmental, social, economic and gender aspects of those investments.

2. Improve access to finance both for enterprises (the supply side of the energy equation) and, most importantly, for end users in food systems (the energy demand side). Various examples of tailored financing solutions, including climate finance, on which to build are increasingly available.

3. Facilitate the development of holistic approaches such as integrated food-energy systems (e.g. agri-voltaic systems) and the water-energy-food nexus to minimise competition and leverage synergies in water and land use.

4. More broadly, mainstream cross-sector perspectives into national and regional strategies for transforming the energy and food systems through a stable and supportive enabling environment. That environment must include:

   1. dedicated policies and plans;

   2. cross-sectoral co-ordination that includes government, the private sector civil society and end-users, both nationally and subnationally.

   3. Prioritise low-risk, high-impact action in the near term. Examples include reducing food losses, enhancing circular economy effects, and strengthening the links between energy for food and energy for health as part of the green recovery.

5. Promote innovation in the development of technologies and energy efficient appliances through dedicated high-risk innovation funds and multi-stakeholder partnerships between energy supply and demand actors to develop or repurpose existing technologies, pilot them for operational viability, and establish supply chains to deliver solutions (which must include long-term operational and maintenance services.