Months of Energy Security

Farmers can be asked how many months they typically have enough fuel. This is likely to be a subjective value that can be difficult to compare across sites. For example, an area where fuel sources are distant but abundant may say they have enough, while a site with nearby sources that are declining may say they do not have enough, even if there are abundant sources in a distant location.

Security can be defined more objectively by specifying an amount of time or a distance needed to collect wood, but this can be problematic (see summary of Brouwer et al. 1997 in Metric 2 above); or it could be defined by the prevalence of specific economizing activities (i.e., shortening cooking time).