Agriculture in Focus

14 countries had renewable energy targets or policies for agriculture in 2022

By end-2022, around 15 countries were using geothermal greenhouse heating to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers

The EU launched a tender in 2022 for the incorporation of renewables in agriculture and forestry

The use of biogas in agriculture doubled during 2010-20, while the use of liquid biofuels grew9.4 times

7 countries had financial incentives for the use of renewables for irrigation as of end-2022

Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture ⁱ contributed around 4.3% of the world's gross domestic product in 2021. ¹ The agriculture sector ⁱⁱ employed just over a quarter (26.6%) of the total global working population that year. ² The highest shares of agricultural employment were in Africa (51.8%) and South Asia (41.5%), followed by Southeast Asia and the Pacific (27.8%), North Africa (23.7%), East Asia (22.2%) and Central and West Asia (20%). ³ Employment in agriculture was below 15% in each of the remaining world regions: Latin America and the Caribbean (14.5%), the Arab States (9.5%), Eastern Europe (8.2%), Northern, Southern and Western Europe (3.1%) and North America (1.6%). ⁴

In 2020, agriculture and forestry accounted for around 3% of the world's total final energy consumption, and fisheries represented around 0.07%. ⁵ Of the total energy use in agriculture, around 73.3% was in the form of heat. ⁶ Meanwhile, fishing is one of the world's most energy-intensive food production methods, relying almost entirely on fossil fuels. ⁷ In 2022, the annual fuel consumption of the European Union's (EU) fishing fleet alone was nearly 2 billion litres. ⁸

Energy use in agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture contributed around 1 gigatonne of carbon dioxide (CO₂)-equivalent emissions in 2020, including direct emissions from burning fossil fuels and indirect emissions from electricity generation. ⁹ Nearly 94% of these total emissions were CO₂, and nearly half were from electricity use. ¹⁰ Emissions from these sectors have increased over the past two decades. ¹¹

The share of renewable energy used in the agriculture sector grew from 10.2% in 2010 to 15.4% in 2020. ¹² (See Figure 14) Of the renewable share in 2020, 59% was renewable electricity, 7% was solar thermal and geothermal heat, and 34% was modern bioenergy. ¹³ The use of modern bioenergy in agriculture has remained nearly flat, rising from 5.2% in 2010 to 5.4% in 2020. ¹⁴ Within the bioenergy segment, the share of solid biofuels fell sharply, from 94.3% to 78.7%, while the share of biogas increased from 4.06% to nearly 8% and the share of liquid biofuels surged from 1.6% to 13.4%. ¹⁵ Overall, the renewable electricity share in agriculture increased from 4.7% to 9.0% of the sector's total final energy consumption, and the use of solar and geothermal heat rose from 0.2% to 1%. ¹⁶

Key drivers of technological developments in the agriculture and fishery sectors have included the desires to reduce fuel costs and save energy, as well as to increase access to energy for farmers and fishers. ¹⁷ In the fisheries sector, technological developments in vessels, gear and operations – such as the use of LED lighting for night fishing – have brought cost savings to fishers in Asia, Southern Africa and the Caribbean, among other places. ¹⁸ Additional key topics of discussion in 2022 included the need to decouple food production from fossil fuels and the need to scale up investment in renewables in the agri-food sector to reach last-mile farmers and support their energy transition. ¹⁹

In rural areas, the lack of access to a reliable power grid has driven farmers to embrace renewable alternatives. ²⁰ Off-grid renewable cooling technologies have helped reduce massive post-harvest losses of agricultural products, allowing farmers to expand their market reach and gain power in price negotiations, as they are less constrained by time. ²¹ Renewable technologies also allow rural populations to adopt time-saving revenue-generating solutions, such as small-scale solar milling in place of large-scale diesel-powered mills. ²² Through the use of geothermal heating for greenhouses – for example, in Iceland – farmers can grow produce locally, helping to avoid domestic reliance on costly imports. ²³

These drivers, many of them economic, have led farmers, fishers, multilateral organisations and donors to take greater interest in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies for agriculture and to support their deployment across the globe.

FIGURE 14.

Renewable Share of Total Final Energy Consumption in Agriculture, 2010, 2019 and 2020