The hidden footprint of low-carbon indoor farming

A new study challenges the universal land-saving claims of vertical farming, finding that there is no one size fits all approach for land use, food security and sustainable agriculture. Faced with population growth, environmental change, and increasing concerns over food security and sustainability - the interest in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is on an upward trend. Commercial greenhouses and vertical farms promise a locally sourced, higher crop yield than open-field farming methods relative to growing space. But is that grass really always greener? In a report published in Nature Food , researchers evaluated the potential crop yield of six vegetables (chosen for nutritional value and suitability for CEA farming) relative to growing space. Key to the study was the inclusion of the additional land used by wind and solar farms to harvest low-carbon energy in the overall 'growing space' calculations. Professor Aidong Yang, Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford explained: 'Vertical farms and commercial greenhouses are given as examples of land-saving sustainable farming - but these farming methods use huge amounts of electricity to maintain a suitable growing environment for crops.