IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/joafsc/359585.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Small Organic Farm Renewable Energy Demonstration Project Based on Incremental Capital Investment and Community Participation

Author

Listed:
  • Demeo, Anna E.
  • Peterson, Michael L.

Abstract

Rising fuel prices, energy security, and climate-change awareness are all incentives for farmers to implement efficiency measures and renewable energy systems, such that all or part of a farm's energy needs are produced locally. This practice, known as clean energy farming, complements principles of sustainable agriculture such as promoting environmental stewardship, reducing dependence on nonrenewable resources, increasing economic viability, and strengthening farm families and society as a whole.Farmers who entertain moving toward a more sustainable energy portfolio are often unsure where to begin and how to approach such an endeavor. This uncertainty, combined with the perceived enormity of the task, create an insurmountable roadblock for many. Overcoming these barriers and engaging in small-scale renewable energy projects can benefit the farmer and the larger community. Exposure to such projects is an invaluable means of fostering support for renewable energy as it helps the public better appreciate the human ecological connection between daily energy consumption, the source of that energy, and the overall effect on the environment.The central objective of this paper is to demonstrate a model for sustainable energy for a working farm based on community participation and incremental capital investment. A small organic farm was used as the model to show how to migrate toward energy independence through efficiency and conservation measures, and the incorporation of technologies based on renewable resources. It is a portfolio approach, which allows for multiple technologies such as wind, solar, biomass, and efficiency measures to be implemented over time as funds become available.

Suggested Citation

  • Demeo, Anna E. & Peterson, Michael L., 2013. "Small Organic Farm Renewable Energy Demonstration Project Based on Incremental Capital Investment and Community Participation," Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, Center for Transformative Action, Cornell University, vol. 4(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:joafsc:359585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/359585/files/227.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:joafsc:359585. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.