CRUX ESSAY CONTEST WINNER 2019 - 2020
It ’ s just a dirty russet potato ,
one of several in an ordinary , five - pound bag . But that bag of potatoes took almost 240
gallons of water to produce ( Kim et al .). Grown on roughly 14 . 5 square feet of demolished
natural habitats , the plants that produced these potatoes were continuously sprayed with
fertilizers and pesticides , pollutants which contaminate our waterways and wetlands via
agricultural runoff . These potatoes were then harvested with industrial - scale machinery
and transported over thousands of miles in refrigerated trucks , filling the atmosphere with
fuel emissions . This is the impact for producing a single bag of potatoes . But the story
doesn ’ t end there . That ’ s right ; this bag of potatoes sits on top of a giant pile of identical
bags with the same production history . Furthermore , this potato pile is surrounded by a
brilliant rainbow of hundreds of different veggies and fruits , all resting in the chilly produce
section of a typical grocery store . The strawberry clamshells , the tomato clusters , the beet
bunches — each sadly shares a similar story to the bag of potatoes . And this grocery store is
only one of the 40 , 000 grocery stores in the U . S . alone , not to mention all the other
countries in the world . Our planet is paying a high price for our irresponsible farming
practices . How can we continue to feed the world while preventing the negative
environmental impacts from conventional farming ? With the constant demand to provide
for our increasing population , I propose indoor vertical farming as a sustainable alternative
to conventional farming in order to reduce energy , land , and water usage , as well as
detrimental waste byproducts .
Most of us don ’ t consider how much energy goes into crop production . Industrial - scale
farming relies heavily on equipment and machinery for mixing soil , planting , pumping
water , spraying agricultural chemicals , harvesting , and , in some cases , thorough drying .
According to the U . S . Energy Information Administration ( EIA ), the U . S . agricultural
industry in 2012 used “ nearly 800 trillion British thermal units of energy ”— the same amount
of primary energy required to power “ the entire state of Utah ” ( Hicks )! Even though this
number includes the energy both from crop and livestock operations , crop operations still
accounted for over 62 percent of energy used . This high energy usage is a problem and
even more so because of where farms are sourcing their energy from . The USDA ’ s
economic research service reported that U . S . farms dominantly source their direct
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