A Systematic Literature Review on Controlled-Environment Agriculture: How Vertical Farms and Greenhouses Can Influence the Sustainability and Footprint of Urban Microclimate with Local Food Production

Abstract

The rapidly growing population and increasing urbanization have created the need to produce more food and transport it safely to urban areas where the majority of global consumers live. Open-field agriculture and food distribution systems have a lot of food waste, and, in parallel, the largest percentage of available arable land is already occupied. In most cases, food produced by compatible agricultural methods needs to be frozen and travel several miles until it reaches the consumer, with high amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by this process, making it an unsustainable method with huge amounts of CO2 emissions related with fresh food products. This research contains an extensive literature review based on 165 international publications (from 2006–2022) describing and analyzing the efficiency and impact of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) methods, and more precisely, greenhouses (GHs) and vertical farms (VFs), in the environmental footprint of food production and consumption. Based on various publications, we could draw the conclusion that VFs could highly influence a greener transition to the sustainability of urban consumption with reduced CO2 emissions sourcing from food transportation and limited post-harvest processes. However, there is a significant demand for further energy efficiency, specifically when it comes to artificial lighting operations inside VFs. A large-scale implementation of VFs that operate with renewable energy sources (RES) could lead to significant urban decarbonization by providing the opportunity for integrated energy–food nexus systems. Under this direction, VFs could optimize the way that cities interact with meeting the food and energy demand in densely urbanized areas.

Factors Affecting Production, Nutrient Translocation Mechanisms, and LED Emitted Light in Growth of Microgreen Plants in Soilless Culture

“…Microgreen and babygreen plants are grown with light sources, but sprouts do not require light sources . The light duration of 6–8 h for rice grass, 6 h for barley grass, 6 h for oat grass, 12 h for wheat grass, 12 h for jowar grass, 12–16 h for mint, 10–12 h for basil, 6–8 h for rosemary, 8 h for sage, 6–8 h for oregano, 6 h for amaranth, 8 h for beets, 8–10 h for chard, 6 h for quinoa, 12 h for spinach, 6–8 h for chives, 10–12 h for garlic, 12–14 h for leek, 12 h for onion, 12–16 h for carrot, 4 h for celery, 6–8 h for dill, 6 h for fennel, 6 h for cabbage, 6–8 h for cauliflower, 14–16 h for broccoli, 6 h for radish, 6–8 h for aster cress, 14–18 h for mustard, 12–14 h for cucumber, 8–12 h for melons, 14 h for squash, 4–9 h for endive, 14 h for lettuce, 12–13 h for beans, 12 h for welsh onion, 12 h for long green onion, 14–16 h for red swiss chard, 12 h for buckwheat, 16 h for sunflower, 8–12 h for maize grass, 16 h for sunflower and 6–8 h for linseed is essential for microgreen plant production.…”

Resources for plant‐based food: Estimating resource use to meet the requirements of urban and peri‐urban diets

“…The EU of air conditioning and other equipment can be estimated as an additional 25% (Kozai, 2013a(Kozai, , 2013b. The energy required by computers, sensors and actuators is very low (less than 1%) and therefore negligible (Vatistas et al, 2022). Thus, the calculated total energy is divided by the annual crop yield, resulting in the amount of energy per kg of product.…”

Biochemical repercussions of light spectra on nitrogen metabolism in spinach (Spinacia oleracea) under a controlled environment

“…Even though CEA-produced vegetables frequently carry price premiums, their share in fresh vegetable production will continue to expand due to increasing consumer demand for local food options. As an indoor food production system, CEA has offered a technological breakthrough to solve several problems associated with traditional farming and mitigate environmental and social challenges at the food-energy-water nexus ( Lubna et al., 2022 ; Vatistas et al., 2022 ; Dsouza et al., 2023 ). Even if the CEA industry is booming, the science-based interventions to optimize the technical precision that identifies suitable light spectrums and nutrient management strategies to recover desired nutritional benefits need continual attention ( Gómez et al., 2019 ; Sharathkumar et al., 2020 ; Neo et al., 2022 ).…”