We need farming, but what kind of farming do we need?

“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”  Robert Swan, OBE, Historian and Explorer.

We need farming, but what kind of farming do we need?

Everywhere you look, farmers, environmentalists, activists, businesses, celebrities, and politicians are talking about climate change, polarizing the subject and postulating what will happen if we don’t take action now. We know the way we are currently farming is harming the planet and our health, but we also know as farmers we have the skills to change the outcome. Some of the problems in agriculture are compounded by long food supply chains, intensive farming and over processing of foods. It remains challenging, in part due to the complexity of the global system we have built. We acknowledge we cannot resolve these issues individually, and campaigners all agree we need to work together to build resilience in the whole food system. 

Urban Ag News created a world graphic to demonstrate the wide range of symbiotic interactions needed to work together for long term food security. 

What role should the CEA industry play in sustaining the food chain?

The founding principles of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) should be to grow food by integrating technology with natural resources in environments close to the consumer, giving better access to healthy, pesticide free foods in a more sustainable way. Importantly, we want to explain how the right technology used in the right situation can help our farmers play their part.

There have been many discussions asking who should lead in CEA. We want to take a more holistic viewpoint, and want to know what role, if any, the CEA industry will play in the security and sustainability of our food systems. Sustainability in CEA has been defined in different ways, but essentially we want to understand how the following co-exist and their interdependency: 

• Profitability
• Technology
• Locality
• Diversity 
• Accessibility 

Farmers have the knowledge and the tools to produce food anywhere, but the real question is: should consumers continue to demand convenience in the food chain at the cost of environmental sustainability?

Our food systems are driven in part to meet consumer demand for convenience. People have come to believe their food should be accessible all year round. We no longer have seasons, and retailers comply by importing to keep shelves stocked. But, anytime crops are grown out of season, or in non-native regions of the world, production becomes heavily reliant on additional energy and distribution networks. Not only is this bad for the planet, it pushes up costs for producers, which is passed on to consumers. It’s a no-win scenario as farmers struggle to maintain economic viability, while transitioning to greener technologies. 

If farming in hyper local food systems needs to be economically viable, how can it be sustainable with all the variables?

“A company that stays in business is economically sustainable, but this doesn’t always mean it’s environmentally sustainable.” Bruce Bugbee, Professor of crop physiology at Utah State University.

On the face of it, the answer seems simple for us in CEA, in that we could provide more local sustainable food production using clean energy, close to where people live. Getting over the startup capital costs of building a farm and access to urban land is a hurdle. Regardless, it would take a huge number of smaller farms to build a better food supply chain, reducing food miles and eliminating food deserts around our inner cities. Cutting air miles is only one part of the solution, we also need to understand the type of technology deployed, and the clean energy inputs required that help us build a more sustainable approach. 

“We need, among others, small local producers, ideally using new forms of high-yielding agroecology.” George Monbiot, British journalist, author, and environmental and political activist.

What difference can CEA make to the planet? 

By its very nature, CEA is a competitively expanding field with progressive and environmentally friendly technologies that allow us to protect the crops we grow and mass produce food on a scale capable of feeding populations at risk from climate change. We believe the industry should drive down energy consumption, eliminate pesticides and reduce agricultural run-off. It’s a little too early to celebrate these accomplishments, we need to do more work before we pat each other on the back.

Integrating innovative and time saving technology in existing farms will make them more efficient, and is an interim way to restore local supply chains. Creating skilled farming jobs, and bringing people closer to the food supply chain, is critical to success. We have discussed some of the issues with labor in the CEA industry in previous articles. 

Less obvious are the advances in crop breeding that increase the range of crops that can be adapted to grow in CEA. We can keep developing suitable crops, but the area of highest impact is undoubtedly changing consumer behavior, and for that to be successful we need increased consumer knowledge. This includes understanding the value of local fresh produce that does not travel across the world to reach our supermarket shelves. Paying for higher quality is a more sustainable approach in the long term. We know this is a complex subject and that not all consumers can afford to pay higher costs. 

“Consumers who prioritize locally grown, and seasonal produce are often willing and able to pay a premium for products.” Urban Ag News 

How do we measure sustainable agriculture?

Fossil fuel energy costs have hindered the CEA industry in the past, but new farms will undoubtedly attempt newer hydrogen technologies, or we may see hybrid farms, mixed with solar, wind or thermal renewable energy. We are already seeing this trend. 

Moving to new clean energy sources is going to be capital and potentially carbon heavy in the short to medium term. Striving to make CEA farms profitable using renewable energy is in the short term more costly to the environment. Do we have the time and enough data to mobilize green energy for food systems? For investors in CEA, there should be modeling from prospective businesses demonstrating quantitative metrics of inputs, and emissions from food grown with the use of fossil fuels and renewables. But who will invest in sustainability of the global food system, and should it be governments concerned with social good and the environment rather than wealthy business owners?

“The transition to clean CEA farms should use tech that harnesses both natural resources of the region and availability of labor to produce crops with the lowest energy inputs.” Chris Higgins, President and general manager of Hort Americas.

Extreme weather, either too hot, too cold or too wet, will make current crops and locations unpredictable. The use of renewable energy sources either to heat or cool these crops must not exacerbate the problem. In the long term, conversion to clean energy sources will lead to more sustainable CEA food production in regions that become inhospitable to certain crops and require either cooling or heating to maintain suitable temperatures. Rebates on high energy costs will encourage farmers to take advantage of green schemes, and more engineers will enter this field in the future to help us achieve additional energy efficiencies. All farmers will need access to land to build resilient infrastructure.

Why LED lighting is better for energy consumption and is the most efficient way to supplement sunlight for photosynthesis 

Lighting is a key topic in this industry, and LEDs are well proven to increase yields and reduce crop disease. A first of its kind comparative study by Wageningen University showed an energy saving of 40%  when switching to LED lights versus conventional agricultural lighting.  The switch reduces heat radiating from traditional lamps by 25% which gives enormous flexibility to transition to clean renewable energy heat resources. 

LEDs also provide an opportunity to increase yields and crop efficiency using advanced spectral recipes, extended photoperiods and variable light intensities as the crop demands. This provides the grower with more control and flexibility to determine the light level separately from heat generation in greenhouses. Innovation will make it possible to build in flexible LED lighting that adjusts automatically in response to plant physiology, optimizing plant photosynthetic capacity. Fine-tuning of LEDs will make crops more efficient and together with genetic breeding will yield higher biomass using highly effective and sustainable growing methods. 

Eliminating agricultural run-off by integrating a closed nutrient feed system in a greenhouse or open field 

As CEA farmers, we do not propose to solve all the issues created by climate change, but one we can have an immediate effect on is nutrient run-off into groundwater. Water is a commodity we need to use sparsely in agriculture and run off is tightly controlled in high-tech environments, recirculating through filters and running operations with only minimal top up for small production sites. Innovative technologies like nanobubbles extend the lifespan of nutrient solutions, and careful automated monitoring ensures the plants get all uptake of nutrients at the right time with accuracy and efficiency.

Monocrop farming is not only killing the planet through deforestation, it is also impacting our health.

Farming crops like wheat, rice, soy and palm oil is impacting our environment and damaging core systems, leading to further downstream effects. It’s a complex picture as monocrops themselves do not create a poor diet. Instead, poor health is more likely to be linked to consumer behavior and a lack of knowledge of how some processed foods in the diet can be damaging. We appreciate the choice of an individual to be healthy is not the responsibility of farmers, but we should all promote diverse fruits and vegetables to sustain healthy lives.

Crops suitable and adapted to CEA have until now been limited, and we want to avoid CEA itself becoming a ‘monocrop’ industry. The issues here are conflicting, as monocrops have saved millions from starving, but the cost to the planet has been high and is unsustainable. Diversifying what we grow is significantly better for human health, biodiversity, and long term food security. 

We are making huge strides with access to clean stock, producing diverse crops that are adaptable to CEA systems. It will help the planet by providing the consumer demand for certain foods in a way that avoids air miles and excessively destructive land-use change.

Crop diversity is a bottleneck in CEA as we figure out the most profitable markets to offset the higher energy inputs in the short term. Most growers are established experts in the leafy green space, but it takes skill and innovation to make other crops such as dragon fruit and saffron economical. We will get there. Science based, profitable opportunities are presented by CRISPR  gene editing to create new crops or varieties to circumvent rising temperatures, taking advantage of extended growing seasons. 

“What’s a gene worth? If it unlocks a crop trait that helps farmers grow enough while conserving our planet’s natural resources, then… everything.” Bayer US.

Some of our most well known superfoods, turmeric, ginger, and strawberries thrive in hotter climates, while cooler temps favor lesser known medicinal crops like wasabi and ginseng. These all grow in climates we are able to simulate indoors or in quasi greenhouse hydroponics systems. Just how a grower chooses to adapt their growing methods should not be restrictive, but technology can be ancillary to their needs. There are further opportunities for development of new medicines and protein sources from plants grown in CEA,  which will give access to more people in the world. 

Why is this important? 

Our consumerism is not only destroying the planet, but destroying our health. The two are inextricably linked. While farmers are developing innovative solutions that promote sustainable agriculture, we believe the added burden of health should not lie solely with them. 

We have a window of opportunity to make the food chain more sustainable and at the same time improve global health through what people eat.

We are all in danger of acute disease from not only future pandemics but also from sedentary consumer diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Not only that, but we consume too much of the wrong stuff because it is marketed to us in irresistible ways. How many of us consider the planet when we are filling our shopping baskets with processed foods?

Eating better is one of the simplest answers, yet we are defined as a generation that has still to behave in a way that allows us to have healthy lives. Part of this is down to access to healthy foods, as we know the problem is exacerbated in deprived inner city communities. It is also about the cost for an individual, when it could be cheaper to buy processed foods, yet we pay a heavy price for healthcare to resolve lifestyle diseases down the road. The answer is to educate communities with simple messaging, and data driven science to bring people closer to their food chain, and help them make more ethical decisions about their space on the planet.

Who will lead the CEA industry?

As a populist driven society, we rely on influential people to drive home the message. 

Some people, like Stephen Ritz, are leading the way in CEA, raising awareness in their community with particular emphasis on children’s education. We need others to step up and encourage the next generation. 

Ultimately it’s not about us, it’s about our children, who will bear the burden of feeding the world.

“We must shift our emphasis from economic efficiency to life efficiency.” Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Finally, we return to what Chris discussed in his article and who should lead this movement as we try to understand how we come together to resolve our sustainability issues in farming. We cannot claim to resolve the world’s food problems with CEA alone, but we can keep innovating, keep talking to farmers, and advising on the right tech for the right situation. 

“You just need to know how to properly use the appropriate technology that allows each farm to scale correctly by understanding the relationships between yield and capex, and opex per square foot, meter, acre or hectare.” Chris Higgins 

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