New Study Claims Homegrown Garden’s Carbon Footprint Is 6 Times Greater Than Conventional Farming

The study received greater attention after it was published in The Telegraph.

Study co-author Jason Hawes, a doctoral student at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability, commented on the results, saying:

The exceptions revealed by our study suggest that urban agriculture practitioners can reduce their climate impacts by cultivating crops that are typically greenhouse-grown or air-freighted, in addition to making changes in site design and management.

Urban agriculture offers a variety of social, nutritional and place-based environmental benefits, which make it an appealing feature of future sustainable cities. This work shines light on ways to ensure that urban agriculture benefits the climate, as well as the people and places it serves.

U-M provided more details of their study in a press release published on January 22nd. The college wrote:

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Urban agriculture, the practice of farming within the confines of a city, is becoming increasingly popular worldwide and is touted as a way to make cities and urban food systems more sustainable. By some estimates, between 20% and 30% of the global urban population engages in some form of urban agriculture.

Despite strong evidence of the social and nutritional benefits of urban agriculture, its carbon footprint remains understudied. Most previously published studies have focused on high-tech, energy-intensive forms of UA—such as vertical farms and rooftop greenhouses—even though the vast majority of urban farms are decidedly low-tech: crops grown in soil on open-air plots.

[The study] used data from 73 urban farms and gardens in five countries and is the largest published study to compare the carbon footprints of urban and conventional agriculture.

Three types of urban agriculture sites were analyzed: urban farms (professionally managed and focused on food production), individual gardens (small plots managed by single gardeners) and collective gardens (communal spaces managed by groups of gardeners).

For each site, the researchers calculated the climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions associated with on-farm materials and activities over the lifetime of the farm. The emissions, expressed in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per serving of food, were then compared to foods raised by conventional methods.

On average, food produced through urban agriculture emitted 0.42 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per serving, six times higher than the 0.07 kg CO2e per serving of conventionally grown produce.

Inputs to the urban agriculture sites fell into three main categories: infrastructure (such as the raised beds in which food is grown, or pathways between plots), supplies (including compost, fertilizer, weed-blocking fabric and gasoline for machinery), and irrigation water.

By assessing actual inputs and outputs on urban agriculture sites, we were able to assign climate change impacts to each serving of produce. This dataset reveals that urban agriculture has higher carbon emissions per serving of fruit or vegetable than conventional agriculture—with a few exceptions.

Most of the climate impacts at urban farms are driven by the materials used to construct them—the infrastructure. These farms typically only operate for a few years or a decade, so the greenhouse gases used to produce those materials are not used effectively. Conventional agriculture, on the other hand, is very efficient and hard to compete with.

Said study co-lead author Benjamin Goldstein, assistant professor at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability.

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Of course, growing food in your backyard and in the city is bad for the environment, but the mass-commercial scale agriculture practices that destroy the land, kills a ridiculous number of animals, sprays the crops with tons of harmful chemicals – that’s much better, apparently.

I’m sure studies such as this and more to come will be used to justify why the government has to implement a registry for growing food in your backyard, and everyone needs to eat the government sanctioned slop.

SEE: The USDA Wants Americans To Register Their Gardens In A National Database

He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding.

Proverbs 12:11

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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