The webpage “Indoor Farming and Industrial HVAC'' from Metrexvalve (2021) introduces the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) units, used in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) for climate control, an important component in the creating and maintaining of a conducive environment for plant growth. The hardware of which may include dehumidifiers, humidifiers, ventilation systems, exhaust fans, extensive ductwork, ductless air-rotation systems, etc. These units are extremely important in indoor farms as they allow crops to grow year round independent of external weather conditions. Singapore being the second most densely populated country in the world with limited land resources, they have relied on overseas imports for more than 90% of their food supply. This coupled with the supply chain disruptions due to conflicts and pandemics highlighted the need for Singapore to develop reliable and eco-resilient farming modules (Youhanna et al.,2022). Working towards Singapore’s goal for “30 by 30”, local farmers have turned towards technology and innovation to increase local production as stated by Singapore Food Agency(SFA, n.d.).
A feature of HVAC units is control over the air-conditioning and airflow in an indoor farm, which can provide a constant stream of carbon dioxide enriched air to further advance plant growth and development, as well as maintaining temperatures at specific levels to optimize the growth rate of plants (Kurt and Bruce, 2017). This provides a key advantage over conventional farming methods, as the production process can be largely separated from the natural environment, therefore the production will be less reliant on environmental conditions. As climate change worsens extreme weather conditions,such as droughts and desertification, it is likely to disrupt conventional farming at a global scale (Nicholar, at el.,2022). Thus, the shift towards indoor farms and their developments are so important to countries with food security issues, it was provide a much needed level of food security.
The ability to control the farm's environment also provides an additional benefit of allowing us to grow non-native crops. This is perfect for a country such as Singapore as it is a rather temperate climate, making it hard or impossible to grow more temperamental crops such as strawberries, etc., and so with the ability to control the airflow and temperature, we will be able to grow seasonal produce all year round further helping to bolster food production. Moreover, producing these non-native crops further reduces the ecological footprint that comes with transportation, logistics and even food waste (Lisa, 2018).
This is however a caveat to this increase in production of crops, the cost. The switch from conventional to CEA farming requires a large initial investment in infrastructure, and depending on the scale of the projected CEA farm, the cost can exceed millions of USD (Nicholas, at el., 2022). Coupled with the cost of maintenance and day to day operations of HVAC units, in extreme climates and northern latitudes, HVac systems account for 70-85% of the total operation costs, even in warmer climates the cost of a HVAC can still represent up to 50% of the entire CEA operation. With such specific temperature control some studies have shown that, due to sensor errors causing a higher than reported temperature of the indoor environment, lead to an increase in yields of crops, however the additional cost of operations and maintenance greatly overshadowed the increase in yield of crops (Nicholas, at el., .2022).
As it stands currently, relying mostly on production of staple crops and meat, the CEA system will remain economically unfeasible in these systems. However it is the technological advances likely to come in the next few decades that makes this a promising solution to the issue with global food shortages. CEAs have constantly been developed and has already reached the threshold in chick CEA systems can use renewable energy to improve the sustainability of food production. Especially with climate change affecting conventional farms with droughts and desertification of lands, pushing the further development of CEA technologies which will eventually enable cheap and intensive production of staple foods, there by showing the true potential of CEA systems (Nicholas, at el., 2022).
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