# feel good food article



## Doug MacIVER (Sep 1, 2017)

it's workin,  it's literally growing. known we can grow food anywhere, about time it got competitive.http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming/


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 2, 2017)

Doug MacIVER said:


> it's workin,  it's literally growing. known we can grow food anywhere, about time it got competitive.http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming/



That's incredible! And it's in sharp contrast to the story I read about American agriculture this morning:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...a21a56-88e3-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html

The U.S. is falling behind and students are graduating ill-equipped to compete in a modern world. You can bet the school boards in Dutch schools don't waste any time discussing whether to teach "intelligent design" and whether evolution is too "speculative" to teach. I bet they don't offer vouchers for private schools either.


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## woodgeek (Sep 2, 2017)

Great article Doug.

Engineering solutions is seldom the problem.  With enough money, properly distributed and put to work, almost anything is possible.


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## woodgeek (Sep 2, 2017)

OK, I thought about this a bit more....I like it less.

NatGeo is always great for 'feel good' and pretty pictures, but when it comes to heavy hitting, not so much.

I guess I am not surprised that pesticides and water use can be massively reduced in a greenhouse, and that yields in cloudy Holland can be massively increased with application of LED lights.  I am also not surprised that the farmers can make a buck selling high value crops...like perfect, delicious vine ripened tomatoes.  Good for them.

But can we 'feed the world' that way, or can we just keep them well supplied with yummy tomatoes for their lo-cal salad?

I'm more than a little worried about the **energy intensity** of the LED-greenhouse 'vertical farm' mode of agriculture.  My guess is that it is hefty.  Grow LEDs are maybe 30% efficient electricity to light, and higher plants convert light to food crop energy at ~1% efficiency in a greenhouse intensive environment.  So every calorie of food raised would need 300 kcals of electricity.  This converts to about 0.33 kWh per calorie.  The Google says a medium tomato (123g) contains about 22 calories, and so would require ~*7 kWh* of electricity if grown solely under LED lights!  If we say that Dutch ingenuity and feeble sunlight gets them twice that yield per kWh....lets call it a few kWh/tomato.

The annual CA tomato crop recently was about 15 million tons, or about 122 _billion_ medium tomatoes.  Under LEDs, dutch style, we could grow those tomatoes in a corner of Delaware or Vermont, and only need to pump in 500 billion kWh or 500 TWh of electricity.  This is about what the US produces from hydro+wind+solar, or nuclear power these days.  _Just for tomatoes_.

I greatly admire the Dutch, who created and still dominate my scientific research area as a spin-off of their great historical geo-engineering projects.  While their neighbors were fighting multi-generational wars over land, the Dutch just made more land as needed, happily surrendered when the invaders came, waited (and joked ruthlessly about them behind their backs) until they left, or were displaced by the next invaders.  As a legacy of generations of NOT rounding up their best fighters to be sent off to war...they are the tallest people in Europe!

That said, this story is about some folks in a natural gas flush economy (from the HUGE dutch Groningen gas field), with resulting cheap and green electricity (18 eurocents/kWh retail and 350 gCO2/kWh) turning fossil calories from under the ground into yummy salad ingredients.


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## Doug MacIVER (Sep 2, 2017)

woodgeek said:


> OK, I thought about this a bit more....I like it less.
> 
> NatGeo is always great for 'feel good' and pretty pictures, but when it comes to heavy hitting, not so much.
> 
> ...




as usual you are able to bring a lot with you when you step to the table. I guess I'll just keep Natgeo in the agenda driven side of the column. maybe in the future but experiment till  there is no alternative. thanks geek


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## Doug MacIVER (Sep 2, 2017)

woodgeek said:


> OK, I thought about this a bit more....I like it less.
> 
> NatGeo is always great for 'feel good' and pretty pictures, but when it comes to heavy hitting, not so much.
> 
> ...




geek, you may find this guy interesting. Dr. C.S. Prakash, Tuskegee. recent tweet."The Netherlands' tomato productivity is astronomical!  Produces 144,352 tons per square mile - multiple times more tomato "
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 than others!


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 2, 2017)

`


woodgeek said:


> But can we 'feed the world' that way, or can we just keep them well supplied with yummy tomatoes for their lo-cal salad?



They're not trying to solve world hunger, they're running a profitable business to live better. Life is not so good when you don't have money to buy necessities. Would you be so critical if they were manufacturing even more luxurious goods like patio dining sets or artificial Christmas trees? Are you critical about the massive amounts of petrochemicals required to farm soybeans in the standard method?



> That said, this story is about some folks in a natural gas flush economy (from the HUGE dutch Groningen gas field), with resulting cheap and green electricity (18 eurocents/kWh retail and 350 gCO2/kWh) turning fossil calories from under the ground into yummy salad ingredients.



The innovation and industriousness displayed here is exceptional! You can write it off as an economy "flush" with natural gas but a closer look will show that's not what this is about! The way they generate the electricity on-site and use the "waste" products (heat and CO2) to warm their greenhouses and accelerate photosynthesis with CO2 is commendable and is what makes these businesses viable in a market based economy. I would need a lot more hands to count the instances of extreme waste I've seen in typical American businesses. If you point out the waste you are likely to get an ignorant and indifferent response like "that's just the way it is".

As to your concern they are burning fossil fuels, really? Natural gas burns very cleanly and, while it does emit CO2, the fast growing plants consume much of it. It's probably not carbon neutral but it's close and it's a lot better than flying the tomatoes in from a warm climate. That cold, dark land would be consuming just about zero CO2 if it were not for the greenhouses packed with fast growing plants producing healthy food. That's why they can compete in a market based economy (less petrochemicals, pesticides, herbicides, less carbon for transportation, less land, less water, etc. It's viable because it's so efficient.  This is the greenest use of natural gas I can conceive of. Your concerns should be directed at all the 5000 sq. ft., poorly designed and poorly built homes across America housing only 2 people and heated with natural gas.


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 2, 2017)

Doug MacIVER said:


> I guess I'll just keep Natgeo in the agenda driven side of the column.



That's pretty funny because National Geographic is owned by Rupert Murdoch.


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## Doug MacIVER (Sep 2, 2017)

you familar with his kids, the apple rolled downhill from the tree. they are runnin the show these days from what I've heard.


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 2, 2017)

Doug MacIVER said:


> you familar with his kids, the apple rolled downhill from the tree. they are runnin the show these days from what I've heard.



Well then, maybe you can explain just what is this dishonest agenda Murdoch's offspring are pushing? Because I thought the article appeared very illuminating and fact based.

Are you saying those greenhouses are just cover for an underground child sex ring? Or that Murdoch's children have realized that running a blatantly biased and unbalanced "news" outlet (while claiming "fair and balanced") is not a good long-term strategy? I don't understand your claim that this news story is biased or agenda driven. It's a fascinating look into a new (and rapidly growing) industry that relies on harnessing and integrating knowledge and technologies to create ground breaking efficiencies and quality of products. Does it not fit your pre-conceived notions that the Dutch live under a socialistic system and socialism and innovation don't coexist? Is the fact that they had the nerve to even mention it biased? If Nat Geo was not agenda driven, would they be attacking the fact that poor people can't afford fresh tomatoes? I don't get it.

I'm afraid the apples that fell from the tree couldn't roll any lower. The tree was already in the gutter.


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## Doug MacIVER (Sep 2, 2017)

no piissin match from me and get this locked up before it begins, enjoy your afternoon


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 2, 2017)

Doug MacIVER said:


> no piissin match from me and get this locked up before it begins, enjoy your afternoon



Well enough, I was just curious  what you thought National Geographic's "agenda" was with running this story.


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## woodgeek (Sep 2, 2017)

WoodyIsGoody said:


> `
> 
> They're not trying to solve world hunger, they're running a profitable business to live better. Life is not so good when you don't have money to buy necessities. Would you be so critical if they were manufacturing even more luxurious goods like patio dining sets or artificial Christmas trees? Are you critical about the massive amounts of petrochemicals required to farm soybeans in the standard method?
> 
> ...



I think its cool tech too.

But I don't buy your nearly carbon neutral notion.  I think its thermodynamically impossible for "the fast growing plants consume much of it. It's probably not carbon neutral but it's close".  If we think the process is at best a fraction of a percent energy efficient (From gas hydrocarbon BTU to kWh to photons to photosynthesis to tomato hydrocarbon BTU), this implies that 99% of the fossil carbon consumed goes right into the atmosphere.

I also want you to crunch your transportation numbers to prove your assertion.  I think you will find that it requires a lot less energy (and carbon) to grow a tomato not under LEDs and then ship it a 1000 miles than to grow one under some LEDs in your basement.  I estimated above that growing the CA tomato crop under LEDs would use something like 5-10% of US primary energy.  I am pretty sure we don't use that percentage just to ship CA tomatoes to the east coast.

So, I don't have a problem with these folks growing a little high-end food and making some money, but the green schmear on top about saving water and pesticides is frankly a BS smokescreen for a business model that is not at all climate-friendly.  And given the urgency you have voiced before re AGW, I am surprised that you are so much in favor of this....why not use similar intensive methods in a sunnier location (Spain? Italy?) without the LEDs, and ship the produce up to Holland on a nice electric train powered by a low carbon grid??  Wouldn't that make more climate sense?

You seem to think that the business success is evidence for its energy efficiency....nope.   They have to make their own electricity b/c they are using so much of it, and it is a large budget item, to minimize costs associated with retail electricity.  The process is a financial success b/c their customers will pay a lot for a yummy, domestically produced organic tomato, especially with a green sheen on it AND b/c the <1% eff fossil-fueled process is fed by dirt cheap natural gas from one of the largest gas fields on the planet, located a short distance away.


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 3, 2017)

woodgeek said:


> I think its cool tech too.
> 
> But I don't buy your nearly carbon neutral notion.  I think its thermodynamically impossible for "the fast growing plants consume much of it. It's probably not carbon neutral but it's close".  If we think the process is at best a fraction of a percent energy efficient (From gas hydrocarbon BTU to kWh to photons to photosynthesis to tomato hydrocarbon BTU), this implies that 99% of the fossil carbon consumed goes right into the atmosphere.
> 
> ...



The dirty secret is  that standard farming techniques use tractors and airplanes to apply pesticides, fungicides and herbicides multiple times during a single crop. Fossil fueled tractors, till the soil, before and during planting too. Agriculture is fossil fuel intensive. These greenhouses have none of that. Certainly, no food production method is carbon neutral, what's of interest is a comparison of the different methods carbon footprint taking everything into account.

With increasing use of air freight to transport perishables internationally comes even more fossil fuel consumption. About half the cost of operating a fleet of jets is fuel. And fuel use is almost directly proportional to the weight of the plane and cargo. Recent trends in shipping of produce by air are very troubling for AGW but consumers are demanding fresh, high quality produce. These greenhouses supply consumers far from suitable climates high quality produce without the fossil fuel associated with long distance transport. In the winter produce is often flown from the Southern Hemisphere! Talk about AGW! You can learn more about the recent growth of air freighting of perishables here:

https://www.economist.com/news/busi...-instead-planes-are-full-fresh-produce-trends



Of course calculating exactly how much CO2 is embodied in produce that is farmed with tractors and large amounts of petrochemicals and transported to market with trucks or trucks and airplanes vs. in a greenhouse is beyond the scope of a casual discussion. To do it justice would take months/years. But I do think you may be over-estimating the amount of CO2 produced by the lights. LED are very efficient and agricultural LED's have been developed to concentrate light production only in the two narrow bands of the light spectrum in which photosynthesis occurs. The lights are supplemental to natural light and, combined with the waste CO2 and waste heat supercharge growth rates to many times what could be achieved using traditional methods. Many crops could not be grown locally without these valuable innovations.

Many studies have been done on the AGW footprint of various methods of growing and transporting perishables but, as far as I can tell, no one has taken on the truly momentous task of doing a complete cradle to grave study of the AGW footprint of the innovative Dutch greenhouses vs. imported food using standardized methods. This would require including the AGW footprint of the manufacture, transportation and application of pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. It would vary greatly depending upon the transportation methods, how chemically intensive each crop was to produce and the location it was grown. The total AGW footprint is hard to calculate and requires numerous assumptions. What we do know is the rapidly growing consumer preference for fresh, high quality produce year round is driving the rapid increase in air freight for perishables. Some crops such as apples can be shipped via the slow, efficient method. But more perishable foods must be grown locally or transported more rapidly using carbon intensive means.  Traditional heated greenhouses are wasteful. The Dutch greenhouses are heated with waste heat and achieve much faster growth rates due to LED's tailored to the narrow spectrum utilized for photosynthesis.

The real solution is to include the price of AGW into fuels as a carbon tax. Then the Dutch greenhouses would sink or swim on their own merit. However, I will point out that jet fuel is not taxed like road fuels are. Air freight is subsidized in many ways, including (here in the US) the FAA. A carbon tax would also probably reverse the trend in consumer preference for eating so much high-quality, non-local produce out of season. In the interim, the Dutch greenhouses are producing living wage domestic jobs (at the expense of African agricultural workers) and developing innovative food production techniques and knowledge that will undoubtedly spawn many new industries around the world. Their innovation and determination to produce their own high quality produce is brilliant.

And this when many American farmers are struggling, even with cheap fuel to power their trucks, tractors, harvesters and chemical needs


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## woodgeek (Sep 3, 2017)

Wow, you really don't do numbers @WoodyIsGoody ?

Its a "secret" that agriculture is fossil-fuel intensive, and surprising that a major cost of running a jet fleet is fuel?  Patronize much?  Oy.

It would take "months/years" to estimate the carbon impact?  No one has "taken on the momentous task" of estimating the carbon impact of traditional agriculture?  Getting to the correct answer is 'beyond the scope of a causal conversation"?  LOL.   

I gather that you like to make 'gut feeling' assessments about technology; if I'm wrong please correct me.  If you see a diesel powered tractor chugging away in a huge field of soybeans, its clearly evidence that the world is being destroyed, but if a nice Dutch fellow has a bank of spiffy high tech LEDs over his plants...that just looks clean and nice and he seems like a smart guy, how could it be bad?  I think that people making such 'gut assessments' is a major part of the problem re AGW...we actually need to put in the numbers, and then casually discuss the results!   If you won't do that....perhaps you are part of the problem?

Fortunately, there are thousands of scientists around the world who do those calculations for a living. Its not hard to put some numbers in.

Above you were asserting (without sources or math) that soybean production was massively fossil intensive, so that this Dutch approach was certainly better. Turns out that since soybeans are a major feed ingredient (as a vegetable protein source), the soybean carbon footprint drives that of many animal products (by a different multiplicative factor for each animal species) so....it has been VERY well studied.
A typical peer-reviewed source is here as a free pdf:
https://media.eurekalert.org/aaasnewsroom/2009/FIL_000000000187/Pelletier 2008_Environmental performance in the US broiler poultry sector_AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS OFFPRINT.pdf

In it, you can find that it takes ~*0.2* units of fossil energy input to produce 1 unit of soybean feed energy using conventional methods.

Above I assumed that the energy efficiency of producing (plant carbohydrate) food with LEDs was less than 1% overall from natural gas to food calories.  Let's dig into that.  Let's say natural gas to electricity is 50% (optimistic).  Let's say electricity to narrow spectrum LED light is 50% (for white light it is more like 30% state of the art).  For photosynthetic conversion in a higher plant with narrow spectrum light, let's say it is 5% (typical numbers in conventional agriculture are more like one _tenth_ that).  Let's say one quarter of the energy ends up in the crop (versus other plant parts and plant metabolism).

That is (generously): 0.5*0.5*0.05*0.25 = 0.003125...let's assume some light comes from the sun and the Dutch are geniuses (they are), and round that up to *0.5%*.

This implies that producing a food calorie in a Dutch LED tomato takes *200* units of fossil energy.  This is *1000x* higher AGW impact per food calorie than the other example you mentioned earlier....soybeans.

A factor of 1000 is not small: a hypothetical Dutch vegan guy living on LED produce and riding his bike everywhere has a higher CO2 footprint per mile than a (hypothetically carnivorous) American soccer-mom driving her SUV the same distance!

But let's not compare apples to soybeans, let's compare LED tomatoes to jet-set tomatoes, (where you just moved the goal posts to)....

Here is a table of shipping carbon impacts, units are per metric ton freight per km:
*Air plane (air cargo), average Cargo B747 *
500 g
*Modern lorry or truck*
60 to 150 g
*Modern train *
30 to 100 g
*Modern ship (sea freight) *
10 to 40 g
*Airship (Zeppelin, Cargolifter ) as planned* 55 g
from here: http://timeforchange.org/co2-emissions-shipping-goods

Let's *double* the air freight figure to account for older aircraft, and call it 1 kg CO2 per freight tonne per km.  I don't know where Europeans fly in their produce from...we might get ours from central america.  Let's call the distance 4000 km to be safe.  So that is 4 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per tonne of jet-set tomatoes.

In round figures, that medium tomato I cited above that weighs 123g and contains 22 kcals of energy would release 123x4 = *500 gCO2* equivalent to ride an older airplane 4000 kms (2500 miles).

We figured we could convert natural gas energy to tomato energy at 0.3125% eff, and then rounded that up to 0.5%.  That means we need to burn 22*200 kcals of Dutch natural gas to make one medium tomato with LEDs.  Natural gas is 13 kcals/g, so this is 4400/13 = 338g of CH4.  Burning 338g yields about *1000 gCO2* (ignoring AGW impacts from CH4 leakage, production and gas transport).

So, it seems that your Dutch LED tomato (that you love) actually has *twice* the carbon footprint of the jet-set tomato (that you hate).

Numbers, they're funny things.  

Obviously, this gets proportionally worse if you fly your tomato less than 2500 miles, or use a newer vintage aircraft for that.  In fact, a newer aircraft could fly a tomato 10,000 miles (halfway around the world), before it was equal in estimated AGW emissions to your 'locally grown' Dutch LED tomato!

I assert (without citation) that if the Dutch vertical LED farmers were as carbon efficient as you assert (without sources or numbers), then they would crow about that as much as they do about reducing water and pesticide.  We would hear about it all over....agriculture climate impacts (about 22% of AGW is driven by conventional agri food production) are mitigated by Dutch innovation!  The fact that they don't mention that....its because from a climate perspective their product appears WORSE than the worst example you could dream up...winter produce flown in in jets from another continent.

The solution is obvious...grow tomatoes in a sunnier or warmer climate using daylight rather than LEDs, that is not too far away, and then ship it in a couple days by train or truck, and you can have some nice winter produce that has a tiny fraction of the climate impact of either the LED or jet-set tomato.


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## Doug MacIVER (Sep 3, 2017)

woodgeek said:


> Wow, you really don't do numbers @WoodyIsGoody ?
> 
> Its a "secret" that agriculture is fossil-fuel intensive, and surprising that a major cost of running a jet fleet is fuel?  Patronize much?  Oy.
> 
> ...



I've got to go back to school? my gosh, a lot of work in a fact filled post.

tripped across a cite on UK toms. it's the UK but it goes along with this topic.http://www.sserc.org.uk/index.php/t...imate-change/2240-where-do-tomatoes-come-from. found it when looking for source of New England winter tomatoes.

fresh production just a blip compared to processed. whole new ball of wax.


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## woodgeek (Sep 3, 2017)

https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...farming-makes-no-economic-environmental-sense

https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/vertical-farms-wrong-so-many-levels.html

http://www.alternet.org/food/why-growing-vegetables-high-rises-wrong-so-many-levels


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## WoodyIsGoody (Sep 3, 2017)

woodgeek said:


> Wow, you really don't do numbers @WoodyIsGoody ?
> 
> Its a "secret" that agriculture is fossil-fuel intensive, and surprising that a major cost of running a jet fleet is fuel?  Patronize much?  Oy.
> 
> ...



I have to say, you have put way more time into this without pay than I'm willing to (which is why I didn't provide numbers to begin with). Numbers are easy to misuse. You do know that 82.6% of statistics are simply made up, don't you? 

Maybe you should apply for a grant from the USDA or DOE or the EPA so you can prove how the Dutch greenhouses will bring the destruction of mankind. The nerve of those Dutch people to think they should be able to eat tomatoes in the middle of winter without flying them in from a warmer climate. Spoiled brats, I say!


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## Seasoned Oak (Sep 6, 2017)

Wow this one went off the rails fast!


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