Water savings potential of CEA production

Added on 14 August 2023

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Water savings potential of CEA production

Resource Innovation Institute (RII), a not-for-profit, public-private partnership, has announced the availability of its “Controlled Environment Agriculture Energy & Water Benchmarking Report: Establishing Preliminary Benchmarks” report. The report is a deliverable to USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under the Conservation Innovation Grant-funded project titled, Data-Driven Market Transformation for Efficient Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA).

The chief highlight of the report is that it validates the water savings potential of CEA. The report can be downloaded from RII’s resource catalog here.

“The water savings potential of CEA is real. It is clear in the data. And circularity best practices drive that outcome” says Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute. “This report provides an important view of how resources are used inside a range of controlled environments found in today’s evolving agricultural landscape. Yet it’s just a starting point. We need significantly more research at a crop and climate zone level, and related to technologies and practices, to really determine the most energy and water efficient pathways forward.

The CEA Energy & Water Benchmarking Report offers a comprehensive look at CEA benchmarking, and reveals key findings, including:

Validates the water savings and water quality potential of CEA, where it has been shown that water circularity strategies can result in greater than 90% water savings compared to common field farming benchmarks.
Outlines that, unlike field farms, CEA facilities include processing, packing, and storage steps, each requiring energy consumption.