An Economic and Environmental Comparison of Conventional and Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Supply Chains for Leaf Lettuce to US Cities

Feasibility study of a controlled environment agriculture ecosystem in Kentucky

“…Several studies have looked at the comparative economics of many of these systems and raise important questions about not just cost, but also environmental impact. Further study is needed to explore the full economic impacts by crop for these comparative systems (Delden, et al, 2021) (GreenTech, 2021) (Nicholson, Harbick, Gomez, & Mattson, 2020).…”

“…Sustainability measures for agriculture are coming under greater scrutiny. While CEA firms can use much less water relative to field production systems (a key advantage in some areas such as the Southwest U.S.), they use substantially higher energy -especially during winter production for lighting and heating, depend more on trucking distribution, and would potentially be a target for some consumers or agencies focused on climate change concerns and GHG emissions specifically (Nicholson, Harbick, Gomez, & Mattson, 2020) Climate smart consumer labelling could become an important messaging point CEA firms would want to consider.…”

Does green vertical farming offer a sustainable alternative to conventional methods of production?: A case study from Scotland

“…Similarly, though the correlation between size of production and sustainability has been documented in other systems (Schlich & Fleissner, 2005), and there is a customer association about this effect in VF (Jürkenbeck et al, 2019), the authors are not aware of any existing study which offers a specific like for like comparison to prove this to be the case. Given the relative contribution analysis, however, it is safe to assume that energy efficiency is the most fundamental aspect to environmental sustainability within a VF (Burgos & Stapel, 2018;Nicholson et al, 2019;Tennant, 2019). Exploration of the effect of electricity mix on the modelled results highlight the strong effects that this plays on the results.…”

Response of Common Ice Plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L.) to Photoperiod/Daily Light Integral in Vertical Hydroponic Production

“…Indoor production has several benefits. In addition to optimizing crop performance, plant factories can deal with global issues including fresh water shortage, limited arable land, extreme weather, pesticide overuse, and carbon emission during food transportation [7,9]. Furthermore, with the development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud computing, and especially 5G and Internet of Things (IoT), indoor farming has stepped into a new generation that is known as smart farming [10].…”

“…Resources can be allocated in a more efficient way, and agricultural production is moving towards highly automatic, intelligent, and efficient modes where people, plants, data, and clouds are all connected [10]. However, the costs of LED lights (both upfront costs and operating costs) still remain high with correspondingly large carbon footprints [7,9]. High energy costs/carbon footprint make indoor farming only feasible for limited types of crops, such as perishable, nutrient-dense, high-yielding crops.…”