“The carbon footprint of any given greenhouse tomato, the leading indoor crop, can vary quite a bit, depending on energy sources, ambient temperatures, and available natural light,” the article states. “But various studies conducted in the United States, Europe, and Canada have estimated that, on average, the production of a pound of tomatoes in an American or Northern European greenhouse using fossil-fuel energy releases 3 to 3.5 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere,” or roughly six times the carbon footprint of field-grown tomatoes.
And yet, with the global population expected to grow to nearly 10 billion people by 2050, food production will need to increase significantly.
“With freshwater supplies and arable land dwindling and droughts exacerbated by climate change threatening to turn California’s fertile heartland into barren desert, where will this additional food come from?” the article notes.
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