1. 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

2. 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?

3. 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

4. Starting With The Big Picture
Sale of vegetables direct to consumers is much more popular in some US regions than others

5. 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:
Retail Store Food Waste:

6. 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)

7. 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

8. Electricity Use
Surprisingly, chilling vegetables post-harvest until market day dominates the electricity footprint
Drip irrigation is very energy efficient
eGRID Factors:

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

10. Fuel Use
Efficient tractor use essential to keeping footprint competitive
Distance to market is significant
Tractor Factor:
Truck Factor:

11. Raw Material Manufacturing
Finding: Contribution of raw materials is small and could be neglected within the accuracy of other impact contributors
Pesticide Emissions Estimate:
Emissions Factors for Materials: ecoInvent

12. 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

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

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

15. Contact Information
John M. Beath, P.E. (Texas) LCA-CP
John Beath Environmental, LLC
Main:
Mobile:
148 S. Dowlen #86
Beaumont, TX 77707
Website:
Farm Contact Info:
Mike Appel & Emily Oakley
Our thanks for their help in completing this project