Skip to content

Comment on Fruit Walls: Before Greenhouses, Garden Walls Created Urban Micro-Climatesparent

Comments

crops grown in heated greenhouses have energy intensity demands around 10 to 20 times those of the same crops grown in open fields.

I dug into the source for that claim. Basically, the article forgets to mention that it is comparing an open field in warmer climates to a greenhouse in colder climates.

The source article[0] cites a report by the The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations[1] for that claim. Going into the source:

Energy inputs can be around 40MJ/kg for fresh produce, such as tomatoes or peppers (FAO, 2011a). In countries such as China and South Korea, the area used for simple shade houses is increasing, but their energy inputs are low compared with energy-intensive heated greenhouses used in other parts of the world. In general, crops grown in greenhouse can have energy intensity demands around 10 to 20 times that of the same crops grown in open fields (Saunders and Hayes, 2009)

[0] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-far...

[1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2454e/i2454e00.pdf

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.