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How do you envisage the impact that these greenhouses will have on the environment surrounding them? I often wonder about polytunnels and how they shut out quit
by frereubu 7y ago
How do you envisage the impact that these greenhouses will have on the environment surrounding them? I often wonder about polytunnels and how they shut out quite a bit of wildlife. Something like this view in Almeria, Spain - https://lh6.ggpht.com/-IHVqCZRVzzo/UiGekR4rgEI/AAAAAAAAr6M/eOxFxGxMse8/greenhouses-almeria-2%25255B5%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800 https://lh6.ggpht.com/-IHVqCZRVzzo/UiGekR4rgEI/AAAAAAAAr6M/e... - concerns me given broader issues such as the collapse in the number of insects - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalyps... (although pesticides seem likely to be the main culprit there).
- quixoticelixer- 7y agoThat's an enormously productive piece of land though and any sort of food production is going to be bad for the environment.
- frereubu 7y ago"... any sort of food production is going to be bad for the environment." This isn't true per se. There are lots of people trying to farm in an environmentally sensitive manner - like http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ http://www.polyfacefarms.com/. There are discussions to be had about whether this kind of farming can feed enough people in the world, but it's not a given that farming is bad.
- jsilence 7y agoI think the rationale here is that the intensified production in greenhouses frees up formerly used as agricultural land elsewhere that could then be repurposed for wildlife and insects. Personally I am not sure this math adds up. At least in Germany farming land is categorized and once the land loses its status as farmland, it can never be turned back into farmland, losing much of its monetary value in the process. Thus the land owners have an intrinsic motivation to keep their property in the farmland category.