Analysis of the energy use of farmers found that it is highly dependent on oil and electricity. In particular, as with fruits and vegetables, 95% of oil use was devoted to facility heating and the dependency on electricity was as low as 5%.
On the other hand, farms and fruit orchards use oil mainly for farm machinery and electricity for storing and drying. In a comparison of crops, the consumption of light oil by tomato growers was 7 times greater than that in rice cultivation and 28 times more than that by fruit tree farmers, and 95% of the energy required for heating during the winter cultivation season in greenhouse gardening was obtained from oil.
At present, farmers' favorite energy sources among all usable energy sources are oil and electricity, and preference for new renewable energy sources such as terrestrial heat, solar heat, and wind force is low. Farmers try to cope with rising oil prices, but the commercialization of new renewable energy should be a priority to enable preference and use.
In the meantime, facilities with major energy reduction are preferred by greenhouse gardeners, including multilayered heat-keeping curtains and vertical heat terrestrial heat pumps.
Every farmhouse wants to upgrade to a highly efficiency facility, but the problem is cost. Countermeasures in any proposed energy policy for small and medium farmers should emphasize the distribution of inexpensive energy reduction facilities.


Researchers: Eun-Mee Jeong, Woong-Yeon Lee
E-mail address: jeongem@krei.re.kr