RE: LeoThread 2024-11-07 08:23

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Growing crops in the dark with “electro-agriculture” can revolutionize food production and free up over 90 percent of farmlands

In the future, photosynthesis could be replaced with electro-agriculture, a process that is four times more efficient and may do wonders for food security.

The two major challenges facing food production are its dependency on weather conditions and the need for large tracts of arable land. But a new study is offering a glimpse into a future where we might not need either.

Researchers have developed a method called electro-agriculture, which uses renewable energy and carbon dioxide to grow crops indoors. This innovative approach could transform farming as we know it—and perhaps even allow astronauts to grow food in space.

#electroagriculture #food #future #agriculture #farming

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If we grew all the food in the US using this approach, farmland requirements could drop by 94 percent, the researchers claim.

“The technology enables food production in vertically integrated systems, reducing the land requirement for traditional crop cultivation. For example, if fully implemented in the U.S., electro-ag could potentially reduce agricultural land use from 1.2 billion acres to just 0.14 billion acres,” Feng Jiao, one of the study authors and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), told ZME Science.

Such dramatic reductions in agricultural land would free up vast areas for ecosystem restoration and carbon sequestration.

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Electro-agriculture versus photosynthesis
Most edible plants produce their food through photosynthesis, a process in which they capture sunlight and use its energy to turn carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil into glucose —- a type of sugar that provides energy to plants. However, a major challenge with photosynthesis is that it is a highly inefficient food production method, converting only about one percent of sunlight into glucose.

“Photosynthesis inherently has a low solar-to-food energy conversion efficiency, typically only about 1%, which limits the productivity of conventional agriculture,” Feng said.

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Additionally, traditional farming occupies nearly half of the world’s habitable land, contributes to high greenhouse gas emissions, and is sensitive to climate conditions. This makes it difficult to sustain photosynthesis-driven food production amid changing weather patterns.

Electro-agriculture on the other hand, uses renewable energy from sources like solar cells to convert CO2 (from the air) into acetate. Plants can use this acetate to fulfill their carbon and energy requirements without relying on sunlight or large amounts of land because the process can be scaled vertically.

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