Assessing the Potential Environmental Impacts of Controlled Environment Agriculture in Detroit and the Future of This Industry Based on Local Food Trends

The main objectives of this research project were to assess the capacity for Detroit to be a model for a variety of methods of urban agriculture; to assess the sustainability and environmental impact of an urban CEA farm; to create an understanding of how much urban food production is necessary to improve the sustainability of our current agricultural system; and to assess consumer demand for local food and sustainability of local food systems. More than half of the global population lives in urban areas that must import resources, so this research assesses the potential of urban food production. One way for a city to provide local food is through controlled environment agriculture (CEA), where soil-less growing trays are used indoors, and crops can be grown year-round using climate control. The primary research questions is whether CEA is more sustainable than traditional agriculture. Hypotheses include: Detroit can be used as a model for CEA farms; CEA is a sustainable way to produce locally-grown vegetables in urban areas; demand for local food is growing and will support future marketability; and local food systems are more sustainable than business-as-usual agriculture based on emissions and energy use for production and transport. Methods included interviewing stakeholders, analyzing data from two Detroit CEA farms and from relevant studies assessing the energy use and yield of a theoretical CEA farm. I interned at an urban farm in Lansing in order to gain information on the functioning of the local food system. Based on the Detroit CEA farms and studies on CEA environmental impacts, it was found that the energy use of indoor agriculture is highly intensive, and may not be advisable without the use of renewable energy and stacked growing trays (vertical farming). Methods must be used that are more energy efficient. New data was created that built upon a study that compared energy use and yield of CEA and traditional farming. The findings were that although indoor hydroponic agriculture is energy intensive, using CEA methods with stacked growing trays increases yield at a higher rate than it increases energy use, because the main use of energy is for heating and cooling, and tray stacking doesn’t change the amount of heating and cooling needed. Although indoor farms currently are not in a position to have an impact on lowering food transport emissions from industrial agriculture, there is future potential based on use of renewable energy and increasing customer demand