Tomatoes from the desert: Environmental footprints and sustainability potential in a changing world

Abstract

Worldwide growing demand for food, alongside limited resources and accelerating environmental changes, suggests that future global food security may rely at least partially on unconventional land and production systems, such as built infrastructure located in desert areas. This paper analyses the environmental footprints (water, soil, carbon, material, solid waste, and ecological) of a tomato production system in passive greenhouses, a low-tech growing structure with no artificial heating or cooling. We collected data from 10 farms in the hyper-arid region of the Central Arava, Israel. Our analysis covers the four stages of production up to the overseas export destination and investigates the system's direct and indirect biophysical interactions. The average footprint of a ton of tomatoes is 1,040 kg/t (Material footprint), 94 m3/t (Water footprint), 72 m2/t (Land footprint), 952 kgCO2eq/t (Carbon footprint), 442 kg/t solid waste (SWF) and 243 gha/t (Ecological footprint). Our results indicate that the environmental hotspots can be attributed to universal factors–water production, fossil energy, fertilizers, structures, and road transport, alongside case-specific elements–soil, evaporation, location and the human-factor. Some differences were found when examining the full range of footprints within farms. No correlation was found between the farm's yields and materials inputs or carbon footprint, pointing to the human factor. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the local production system and proposed some improvement strategies.

Comparative Study of Fertilizers in Tomato-Grown Soils: Soil Quality, Sustainability, and Carbon/Water Footprints

“…This finding suggests that the choice of fertilizer can significantly impact the release of polluted water into the environment. Our results are in line with the findings of Evangelou et al [60] and Wyngaard and Kissinger [57], who also showed how averages vary greatly depending on soil properties, local climatic conditions, and water management systems although no significant correlation the authors found with any individual soil property related to water retention. The high variability of WF values they found suggests the importance of considering water issues at the local scale level.…”

“…However, the fact that System C's Sulfur fertilizer bentonite outperforms even the organic method suggests there are innovative solutions that can further reduce agriculture's CF. Our results are in line with the findings of Wyngaard and Kissinger [57]. Theurl et al [58], in a study comparing various tomato production systems in Austria, Spain, and Italy, showed that heating, packaging, and transport were the most important hot spots regarding GHG emissions associated with the different tomato supply chains and highlighted as the emissions from fertilizers, pesticides, soils, and infrastructures are relevant only in the case of intensive conventional production systems.…”

A host shift as the origin of tomato bacterial canker caused byClavibacter michiganensis

“…The copyright holder for this preprint (which this version posted July 24, 2023. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.24.550321 doi: bioRxiv preprint barriers and colonize tomato plants, which could be related to current production practices (Anzalone et al, 2022;Hao et al, 2019;Ristaino et al, 2021;Wyngaard & Kissinger, 2022) or the impact of domestication and breeding on the plant's physiology and its microbiome (Carrillo et al, 2019;Jaiswal et al, 2020;Soldan et al, 2021). The existence of C. michiganensis strains isolated from grasses at the base of this subclade (Fig.…”

Impacts of some eco-friendly methods on the storage life of tomato fruits

“…One of the world's most significant fruit plants is the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Globally, roughly 180 million tons of tomato are cultivated yearly which has expanded by 165% over the past 20 years and is anticipated to keep growing in the upcoming years (Wyngaard and Kissinger 2022).…”