Evaluating the Sustainability Dimensions of Controlled Environment Agriculture

View the project report

Commodities

Practices

• Crop Production: greenhouses, high tunnels or hoop houses
• Education and Training: decision support system
• Production Systems: aquaponics, hydroponics
• Sustainable Communities: community services, employment opportunities, ethnic differences/cultural and demographic change, infrastructure analysis, local and regional food systems, public policy, quality of life, social capital, sustainability measures, urban agriculture, values-based supply chains

Globally, agriculture faces a changing climate, declining biodiversity, rising pollution, and a growing and urbanizing population who need sustainable sources of food. Amid this polycrisis, the idea of growing food indoors, termed Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), has gained traction as a way to decouple food production from environmental constraints. Proponents promise CEA will grow more food with less land and less environmental impact. However, based on initial literature review, these assertions are narrowly based on CEA’s projected efficiency compared to outdoor agriculture, and do not account for systemic impacts of CEA, for example on urban environments, labor markets, or local economies. This project will fill this conceptual gap by developing comprehensive, evidence-based assessments of the sustainability and equity implications of CEA on the food systems in which they propose to intervene. By combining discourse analysis, qualitative interviews, and ethnography at two CEA sites, we will compare promise against the performance of CEA using the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems framework developed by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, focusing specifically on environmental integrity, social well-being, governance & accountability, and economic resilience. Further, this project will apply Sovacool’s framework for assessing equity impacts of sustainability transition pathways to these CEA cases.  Study findings will be disseminated through three peer-reviewed journal articles, conference presentations, and a white paper for industry and policymakers identifying developmental and operational best practices and policy opportunities to enhance system sustainability and equity.

Objective 1: Assess the sustainability implications of CEA by identifying and characterizing the potential risks and harms from CEA at landscape and community levels.

Objective 2: Evaluate the equity implications of CEA by comparing the distribution of burdens and benefits against other potential pathways for sustainable intensification of urban agriculture.