More bytes per acre: do vertical farming’s land sparing promises stand on solid ground?

Bomford, Mary

doi:10.1007/s10460-023-10472-0

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…1). Nevertheless, Bomford 66 disputed the reality of the land‐sparing that is advocated by proponents of VF.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Protein plant factories: production and resource use efficiency of soybean proteins in vertical farming

Righini,

Graamans,

van Hoogdalem

et al. 2024

J Sci Food Agric

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BackgroundControlled environment agriculture (CEA), particularly vertical farms (VF), also called plant factories, is often claimed as a solution for global food security due to its ability to produce crops unaffected by weather or pests. In principle, essential macronutrients of the human diet, like protein, could technically be produced in VF. This aspect becomes relevant in the era of protein transition, marked by an increasing consumer interest in plant‐based protein and environmental challenges faced by conventional farming. However, the real question is: what does the cultivation of protein crops in VF imply in terms of resource use? To address this, a study was conducted using a VF experiment focusing on two soybean cultivars.ResultsWith a variable plant density to optimize area use, and thanks to the ability to have more crop cycles per year, protein yield per square meter crop was about 8 times higher than in the open field. Assuming soy as the only protein source in the diet, the resources needed to get total yearly protein requirement of a reference adult would be 20 m2 of crop area, 2.4 m3 of water, and 16 MWh of electricity, versus 164 m2, 111 m3 and 0.009 MWh in the field.ConclusionsThe study's results inform the debate on protein production and the efficiency of VF compared to conventional methods. With current electricity prices, it is unlikely to justify production of simple protein crops in VF or promote it as a solution to meet global protein needs.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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“…1). Nevertheless, Bomford 66 disputed the reality of the land‐sparing that is advocated by proponents of VF.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1). Nevertheless, Bomford 66 disputed the reality of the land-sparing that is advocated by proponents of VF. Similarly, the yearly water requirement per capita in VF is about 2.4 m 3 , considering an efficiency of 8.9 g protein L −1 (Table 6).…”

Section: Resource Requirement For Human Protein Needsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protein plant factories: production and resource use efficiency of soybean proteins in vertical farming

Righini,

Graamans,

van Hoogdalem

et al. 2024

J Sci Food Agric

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show abstract

“…Taking an electricity price of US$0.1 per kWh (as in [27], [32]), this amounts to an electricity cost of US$12.5 per kg wheat grain. In practice, this means that staple crops cannot ever be grown economically in a VF, both for the capital intensity [17] and for the resource requirement.…”

Section: And How Much Electricity Is Needed?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The purpose of this paper is to re-evaluate the proposed benefits of VF listed above, and to weigh them against some of the drawbacks, mainly energy use. Regarding the first point, Bomford [17] shows in his well-researched paper that there is very little evidence that the "land sparing" claims related to VF could be achieved. Bomford's conclusion is mainly based on the capital intensity of VFs, with respect to the capital of the enterprises which they would need to absorb to yield a significant land sparing.…”

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confidence: 99%

The dark side of lighting: a critical analysis of vertical farms' environmental impact

Stanghellini,

Katzin

2023

Preprint

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Vertical farming (VF), the cultivation of crops in enclosed and sunless environments, is touted as a solution to global challenges like population growth, urbanization, and climate change, thanks to land conservation, sustainability, reduced water usage, enhanced food safety, and shorter supply chains. This review critically analyses the sustainability claims of VF by particularly focusing on crop energy budgets and productivity. It makes evident that staple crops, vital for calorie intake, cannot be economically grown in VF. Nonetheless, leafy vegetables can and are grown in VF. Based on existing literature, we quantify VF's annual production potential and its associated electricity consumption. We use figures about electricity production to demonstrate that it is doubtful that urban VF production is more climate-smart than transport from far away. It is indeed wishful thinking that there is no environmental cost to getting rid of (free and non-polluting) sun light, even for the very best lighting fixtures. Even in a future world of green (but not unlimited) electricity, there will be a need for balancing grid usage, which does not fit well with the electricity craving of VFs. While VF significantly reduces water use and avoids chemical emissions, these benefits can also be attained in greenhouses, and they often fail to outweigh the environmental impact of electricity consumption. VF may have potential for niche crop production, or be employed for other practical reasons. However, our review challenges the claim that VF production is inherently more environmentally friendly than conventional agriculture.

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Contested agri-food futures: Introduction to the Special Issue

et al. 2023

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Over recent decades, influential agri-food tech actors, institutions, policymakers and others have fostered dominant techno-optimistic, future visions of food and agriculture that are having profound material impacts in present agri-food worlds. Analyzing such realities has become paramount for scholars working across the fields of science and technology studies (STS) and critical agri-food studies, many of whom contribute to STSFAN—the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network. This article introduces a Special Issue featuring the scholarship of STSFAN members, which cover a range of case studies and interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary engagements involving such contested agri-food futures. Their contributions are unique in that they emerged from the network’s specific modus operandi: a workshopping practice that supports the constructive, interdisciplinary dialogue necessary for critical research and rigorous analyses of science and technology in agri-food settings. This introduction offers an overview of STS and critical agri-food studies scholarship, including their historical entanglements in respective studies of food scandals, scientific regimes and technological determinism. We illustrate how interdisciplinary engagement across these fields has contributed to the emergent field of what we term agri-food technoscience scholarship, which the contributions of this Special Issue speak to. After a brief discussion of STS concepts, theories and methods shaping agri-food policy, technology design and manufacturing, we present the eleven Special Issue contributions in three thematic clusters: influential actors and their agri-food imaginaries; obfuscated (material) realities in agri-food technologies; and conflictual and constructive engagements in academia and agri-food. The introduction ends with a short reflection on future research trajectories in agri-food technoscience scholarship.

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More bytes per acre: do vertical farming’s land sparing promises stand on solid ground?

Cited by 11 publications

References 53 publications

Protein plant factories: production and resource use efficiency of soybean proteins in vertical farming

Protein plant factories: production and resource use efficiency of soybean proteins in vertical farming

The dark side of lighting: a critical analysis of vertical farms' environmental impact

Contested agri-food futures: Introduction to the Special Issue

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