RE: Hjacking Photosynthesis
November 21, 2016 at 10:42 am
(This post was last modified: November 21, 2016 at 10:47 am by The Grand Nudger.)
@EP
That's true, unfortunately more people can't do it in the current environment, greenhouse production is already a small fraction of total production because a greenhouse is a substantial investment with strictly confined usage. Most production -of any kind- under cover never gets to the point of a greenhouse, mostly just low and high tunnels. Perhaps a comparison of cost is in order.
An acre is roughly 43k ft2. The average price for an acre of cropland is around 4k USD. The average cost to work that acre (mixed vegetable production) is around 3kUSD.
The average price for a 30x90 greenhouse (aluminum frame and 6mil poly, heating, cooling, irrigation) is 15kUSD. The average cost to work that single greenhouse is around 10kUSD.
Human labor, in both cases, is the largest single line item in the operational costs of either option...and it;s about the same for both (though fields have a slight advantage, the available of machine labor). Now, obviously, you have to have access to land to even put the greenhouse on, so some portion of the costs of an acre are ported into the costs of the simplest and most economic greenhouse option. So it;s easy to see why greenhouses are something people do for a reason and not "just because". In favorable conditions you could buy and work an acres worth of field tomatoes for around 7kUSD. To buy and work a 30x90 greenhouse filled with the same can run you 25kUSD. That gives you an idea of the yield increase you'd need for parity, to get more people into it, so that more research is devoted to it. A 30x90 greenhouse would have to produce around 3.5x the yield of an acre of field (which it doesn't, not even close). Anything that made the greenhouse structure more xpensive, such as glass panels, or pc panels, would push that relationship even further out. People sometimes get stuck on yield per sq ft, and wonder why everything isn;t grown in a pretty steel glasshouse. Well, yield per sq foot isn't the game, return on dollar invested, is.
The only cost effective commercial applications for greenhouse production, at present, are for areas where season extension can net you -at least- 30c per pound premium and two additional plantings relative to field production (essentially, the entirety of south central tomato production in the US hinges on this). Obviously I've simplified alot of the above, and it doesn't take into account novel business models or products (casa, organics, local food markets...for example) or production in areas with notably higher costs per acre of land or lack/shortage of suitable cropland.
That's true, unfortunately more people can't do it in the current environment, greenhouse production is already a small fraction of total production because a greenhouse is a substantial investment with strictly confined usage. Most production -of any kind- under cover never gets to the point of a greenhouse, mostly just low and high tunnels. Perhaps a comparison of cost is in order.
An acre is roughly 43k ft2. The average price for an acre of cropland is around 4k USD. The average cost to work that acre (mixed vegetable production) is around 3kUSD.
The average price for a 30x90 greenhouse (aluminum frame and 6mil poly, heating, cooling, irrigation) is 15kUSD. The average cost to work that single greenhouse is around 10kUSD.
Human labor, in both cases, is the largest single line item in the operational costs of either option...and it;s about the same for both (though fields have a slight advantage, the available of machine labor). Now, obviously, you have to have access to land to even put the greenhouse on, so some portion of the costs of an acre are ported into the costs of the simplest and most economic greenhouse option. So it;s easy to see why greenhouses are something people do for a reason and not "just because". In favorable conditions you could buy and work an acres worth of field tomatoes for around 7kUSD. To buy and work a 30x90 greenhouse filled with the same can run you 25kUSD. That gives you an idea of the yield increase you'd need for parity, to get more people into it, so that more research is devoted to it. A 30x90 greenhouse would have to produce around 3.5x the yield of an acre of field (which it doesn't, not even close). Anything that made the greenhouse structure more xpensive, such as glass panels, or pc panels, would push that relationship even further out. People sometimes get stuck on yield per sq ft, and wonder why everything isn;t grown in a pretty steel glasshouse. Well, yield per sq foot isn't the game, return on dollar invested, is.
The only cost effective commercial applications for greenhouse production, at present, are for areas where season extension can net you -at least- 30c per pound premium and two additional plantings relative to field production (essentially, the entirety of south central tomato production in the US hinges on this). Obviously I've simplified alot of the above, and it doesn't take into account novel business models or products (casa, organics, local food markets...for example) or production in areas with notably higher costs per acre of land or lack/shortage of suitable cropland.
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