Sep 16, 2020
Image sourced from: Produce Business UK
CONTENT SOURCED FROM PRODUCE BUSINESS UK
Written By: Ian Hart
Food’s impact
Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. When it comes to tackling climate change, the impact of food production and the low carbon transformation we must enact is often forgotten in the discussion.
A key part of any solution has to involve engineers and producers working hand-in-hand to apply the principles of the circular economy to the business of food production.
Urban farming
Urban farming shows great potential in reducing the distance food covers in reaching consumers. With the UN predicting that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, it will be more important than ever to ensure people are close to their source of food, and that disadvantaged urban communities have easier access to fresh produce.
Not only do successful initiatives reduce food miles but, with some skilled engineering, they also decrease water use and produce proportionately higher yields from smaller units of land than conventional agriculture.
And, as tightly controlled environments, you are able to collect large amounts of data on how plants react to different system inputs, climate conditions, nutrients, and stimuli.
In turn, those learnings can inform better decision-making elsewhere in production, leading to lower water, energy, and even pesticide use, and reduced costs as technologies improve and the economies of scale kick in. So, urban farming may not open the door but it can help us pick the lock.
Low carbon agriculture
While some of the lessons we’re already learning in urban farming are being applied today to low carbon initiatives, technology is also playing a part in some exciting projects that will radically reduce energy waste and introduce a genuine element of the circularity we need to see.
Heating a commercial greenhouse enables us to grow almost all year round, but this used to come at a significant cost until engineers were able to harness wastewater, heat energy, and CO2 from other industrial processes and use them to enhance greenhouse production.
Siting, for example, a sizeable greenhouse in close proximity to a water treatment plant has allowed a project to transfer heat in a closed-loop system to its own heat pumps and cut down its reliance on fossil fuels.
The same system powers those pumps using Combined Heat and Power units that also produce waste heat, along with CO2, both of which go back into the greenhouse to help boost plant growth.
Such a system, recycling and repurposing local resources, is precisely the kind of development we need, if we are to begin making food production a more circular affair.
Vertical farming
Producing food at multiple vertical levels in precision-controlled environments enables you to take fungal and bacterial threats out of the equation and increase both yields and quality.
It also allows you to recycle process water, reducing the stress put on local resources, and removing the need for it to be chemically treated. But the biggest environmental win, again, is in energy reduction.
Hook your vertical farm up to solar energy and a local anaerobic wastewater plant and, as described above, you effectively exchange local waste and energy for local food.
And, given that commercial vertical farming works well almost anywhere outside of towns and cities, you can grow and supply that food to local people. You can create bona fide circular food economies in communities the length and breadth of the country. And, with every harvest, you can adapt processes and conditions proactively on the back of the data you have gathered to further streamline your operation.
Growing knowledge
It is clear that every nation and, indeed, every individual has a role to play in a collective climate endeavor that will serve the common good.
The truth is the ideas set out in this piece can only bring about the impact we need as part of a broader suite of measures and initiatives, and they go far beyond food production.
But we’re at the start of something that promises not only environmental but also commercial benefits, a series of widespread, highly technical innovations and upgrades that can transform our efficiency, our productivity, and, importantly, the future of our climate.
Nevertheless, such a transformation will necessarily be difficult. Moving towards a circular food economy won’t happen overnight. But the sooner we allocate the right level of resources, the greater our chances of making the urgent progress we all know is required.
This is no time to tinker around the edges. This is the time to commit and to engage process and plant design engineering partners who have built and continue to grow their knowledge of decarbonizing food production. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing properly.
Short Bio of the Author
Ian Hart is Business Development Director at adi Projects, a division of the multidisciplinary engineering company, adi Group.
Further Reading
BAYER AND TEMASEK LAUNCH SEED COMPANY FOR VERTICAL FARMING
AGROURBANA PLANS TO SUPPLY FARM WITH 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY
AGTECH STARTUP IFRAM RAISES $4M FOR AUTOMATED INDOOR FARMING