Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) production has the opportunity to provide a sustainable alternative to conventional farming. A lot of focus has already been placed on CEA's ability to be very water-efficient and space-efficient, and various studies have looked at its energy use. One area which has not yet been fully studied is the current waste outputs from the CEA production process.
Under the advisorship of Dr. Anu Rangarajan, Cornell PhD student Maya Ezzeddine is conducting research to better understand the types of waste streams that come out of typical CEA production processes, and conducting analyses to suggest best practices for sustainability in CEA, minimizing waste-to-landfill without compromising efficiency and without high spending or extra labor costs.
Maya has been interviewing commercial CEA facility owners, operators, or growers, or academics or consultants who work with CEA, collecting anonymous information about waste streams generated at CEA facilities and typical management practices of these waste streams.
Knowing that there are variations from municipality to municipality in terms of waste services provided (such as municipal compost pickup), the study examines CEA facilities in various localities to gain a deeper understanding of how waste management practices could differ from region to region.
Participate in the study consisting of a company profile questionnaire followed by a video call. To get started, a time needs to be selected for the video meeting by using this link and complete this online questionnaire at any time prior to your selected meeting time. Please also feel free to reach out to Maya by mail to discuss.
Source: Agritecture