Ultra-Low Carbon Vegetables Marjorie A. Boone, P.E. (OK, TX) Senior Compliance and Sustainability Engineer John M. Beath, P.E. (TX), LCA-CP Senior Technical Consultant and Environmental Coach LD Pierce, P.E. Solar Energy Advisor September 26, 2018 ACLCA XVIII Striving to make something better every day

Haven’t Farms Been Studied Enough? So with all the studies, what is the massage? Don’t know, right? -------- That is the problem! Today’s Important Questions: Should I buy organic? Are some vegetables preferable? Should I buy from a farmers market? How do farmers measure and improve? How do we get this message out?

Objectives Develop a Small Farm Carbon Footprint Provide Useable Results Develop Real-World Recommendations Allow Others to Follow Our Footsteps Educate Audience on Footprint Process

Starting With The Big Picture Sale of vegetables direct to consumers is much more popular in some US regions than others https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/Highlights/Local_Food/LocalFoodsMarketingPractices_Highlights.pdf

Does Vegetable Footprint Matter? An example suggests that installing solar panels on all small farms could offset all the cars on the road in Ft. Collins, CO 4.6 MT CO2e/car/yr – US EPA Sales Data: See reference for Slide 4 Consumption Reference: https://idahopotato.com/dr-potato/annual-potato-consumption Retail Store Food Waste: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf

Study Farm – Three Springs East-Central Oklahoma Three acres cultivated out of 20 acre property Staffed by a husband and wife team Certified as an organic farm Highly professional operating tactics 100% of sales at a farmers market Mostly feeds family of three (vegetarians) and provides sole revenue ($100 K/year)

Vegetable Farm System Diagram Cultivation and Planting Distribution and Warehouse Retail Store Seeds Fertilizer and Pesticide Use Transport to Market Consumer Use Well Water Tilling and Irrigation Chilling Fertilizer Harvest Washing Pesticides Contributes to footprint Avoided Outside Boundary

Electricity Use Surprisingly, chilling vegetables post-harvest until market day dominates the electricity footprint Drip irrigation is very energy efficient eGRID Factors: https://www.epa.gov/energy/emissions-generation-resource-integrated-database-egrid

Electricity – Eliminated By Installing Solar CoolBotTM and Solar Panels – High Tech comes to the farm

Fuel Use Efficient tractor use essential to keeping footprint competitive Distance to market is significant Tractor Factor: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-vehicle-efficiency-and-emissions-standards Truck Factor: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents/emission-factors_2014.pdf

Raw Material Manufacturing Finding: Contribution of raw materials is small and could be neglected within the accuracy of other impact contributors Pesticide Emissions Estimate: http://buildgreen.ufl.edu/ppt/Handout_Landscaping_Carbon_Footprint.pdf Emissions Factors for Materials: ecoInvent

Footprint by Lifecycle Stages Chiller operations dominate all stage impacts Adding solar is significant Reference: “Lancaster” - Systematic Review of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Different Fresh Food Categories, Journal of Cleaner Production, May 2016

Benchmarking Results Reference studies vary Solar moves study farm results to “best in class”

Now So What? Provide farmers the chance to develop their own results Look for ways farmers can afford solar Educate consumers

Contact Information John M. Beath, P.E. (Texas) LCA-CP John Beath Environmental, LLC Main: +1 888.777.4310 Mobile: +1 409.363.1155 148 S. Dowlen #86 Beaumont, TX 77707 john@beath.us Website: www.beath.us Farm Contact Info: http://www.threespringsfarm.com/ Mike Appel & Emily Oakley Our thanks for their help in completing this project