Updated March 28, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT | Published March 27, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
No one would argue that the climate in North Texas is ideal for growing lettuce, a crop that thrives when there’s a chill in the air. But the region’s broiling summers are of no concern to Eddy Badrina, chief executive of Eden Green Technology, a vertical, hydroponic greenhouse company just outside Dallas.
The company, which sells its leafy greens to Walmart, controls every aspect of a plant’s life. At its 82,500-square-foot facility, cool air is pumped in to create the ideal microclimate around each head of baby butterhead and romaine lettuce. Seven miles of pipes deliver nutrient-rich water. Although natural light floods the space — setting it apart from vertical farms that block out the sun in favor of controlled lighting — additional LED lights obey a programmed algorithm directing them to shine just the right amount of light on each plant.
“We’re pretty agnostic to the outside environment,” Badrina said.
As the effects of climate change intensify, bringing more severe droughts, flooding and pest infestations, some growers are wresting control of their crops away from nature. Huge high-tech greenhouses and smaller vertical farms — windowless warehouses that typically grow plants stacked in trays — hold the promise of letting farmers grow almost anywhere.
But all that control comes with an environmental cost. Inside these facilities, farmers are creating the perfect growing conditions with power generated mostly by burning fossil fuels, and lots of it.
“It’s a lot of the same technologies you’d see in a building for human comfort, but being put to use for plants,” said Jennifer Amann, senior fellow in the buildings program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit focused on reducing energy waste. “There’s extraordinary water efficiency in these facilities, but energy is really the Achilles’ heel.”
In colder climes, indoor farm operators heat their greenhouses with natural gas or propane, since these fossil fuels are often the cheapest option. Vertical farms are a smaller slice of the market, but they typically consume much more electricity than greenhouses to replace natural sunlight and to power cooling and dehumidifier systems.
Nationwide, the industry is on the rise. Between 2017 and 2022, land used to grow vegetables and herbs in greenhouses increased by more than 20 million square feet, an 18 percent jump, according to the federal government’s latest agriculture census, released last month. Though crops grown in indoor farms are still a small percentage of what’s on grocery shelves, they are making inroads in certain parts of the country. In New England today, about 20 percent of the leafy greens for sale come from controlled-environment agriculture outfits.
Energy use in the industry varies widely depending on greenhouse size and what crops are being grown. A study of 12 indoor farms by the nonprofit Resource Innovation Institute found that five of them used as much energy per square foot as a hospital. One vertical farm, an outlier, was guzzling as much energy per square foot as a data center.
These companies advertise their produce as safer, more nutritious and fresher than field-grown produce, since their operations typically skip pesticides and are within a few hours’ drive of major cities. They boast of using one-tenth of the water, a claim backed up by independent research. But they don’t often talk about their energy use; most states don’t require them to report it, and researchers said many are reluctant to share this data. (Please visit The Washington Post for the entire article)
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