“Recognising CEA food production systems as critical infrastructures would be a step in the right direction”

Greenhouse horticulture is entering a period of transformation shaped by intensifying energy constraints, climate impacts and geopolitical developments affecting input availability, production systems and trade flows. According to Foresight Expert Pascale Junker, PascaleJunkerForesight, and Energy Expert Tijs Beek from Sproule ERCE, these conditions are accelerating structural questions around the role of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) in Europe.

“While greenhouse horticulture faces major uncertainties with regard to energy, land, regulation and consumer behaviour, it also stands out for its land-, energy-, water-, and fertiliser efficiency and produces season-independent, year-round high-value plants. It has the potential to become an infrastructure for health, energy, circularity, education, jobs and regional resilience.” The question arising is how to get there, and who is responsible for that.

Structural constraints
Last year, PascaleJunkerForesight and The Futuring Alliance researched the Dutch greenhouse industry, describing a sector operating under a combination of structural constraints and identifying several possible transformations that could attract investors, support domestic growers, transform the workforce, export know-how, and build talent. The following lines set out the insights developed from this research with regard to the potential for expanding greenhouses in Europe.

“Focusing on nutritious edible plants before ornamental plants, geothermal instead of natural gas energy supply, and robustness in the face of climate extremes and water shortages,” Pascale sums up. “In this way, the greenhouse system can become a model for territorial agriculture. Local food production in controlled and irrigated environments can complement open field agriculture, reduce pressure on land and biodiversity, advance planting seasons in the open field, or substitute winter imports, for season-independent, year-round local plant production.”

Foresight and long-term direction
Pascale Junker offers strategic advice and systemic foresight on developments ahead. “Existing methods for decision-making have reached their limits, undersupplying common goods such as intergenerational fairness, a stable climate, natural resources in good health and long-term resilience,” Pascale says. “Foresight is the missing competence for public and private action under acceleration and pressure. Foresight and long-term planning can help identify issues, trends and dilemmas early and provide direction under uncertainty.”

So when asked what a future-proof greenhouse means under increasing energy and geopolitical uncertainty, she points directly towards self-reliance. “Greater self-reliance in energy and water and climate-adapted genetic material, combined with small carbon and ecological footprints, would be the sweet spot. Being first adopters and long-standing practitioners in all the above is the basis for diversifying and expanding subsequently into consulting services for newcomers.”

Pascale Junker

Dutch challenges
“The Netherlands, one of the largest exporters of agricultural products in the world, is faced with high land prices while operating a fuel switch away from domestic natural gas towards low-carbon energy sources such as offshore wind, solar, geothermal, waste-to-energy and biogas,” Tijs explains. “District heating networks and renewable intermittent energy management are under development, with greenhouses already playing a balancing or storage role in energy systems. More than any other EU country, the low-lying Netherlands is exposed to sea level rise, which raises questions around competing land use strategies.”

Pascale adds that energy, water and food security is more difficult to achieve nationally than at the continental level, where aquifers renew, crops migrate and adapt to climate change and renewable energy surpluses and deficits can be balanced. “Whether in Southern or Atlantic Europe, greenhouses will have to cope with heatwaves, drought, water scarcity and heavy winds.”

Europe’s wider energy and fertiliser dependency
As Europe is an energy importer with above-global-average per capita energy use and below-global-average domestic energy resources, the continent is exposed to international energy constraints. “This is a result of physical depletion or commercial supply disruption. The closing of the Straits of Hormuz reflects this vulnerability: Europe’s energy dependence extends to imported synthetic fertiliser, which is essential for food production.”

Rather than considering the current international context as temporary, Tijs says it should be used as a basis for structural changes towards greater self-reliance in essential goods and services.

“European fertiliser self-reliance can be strengthened by applying higher fertiliser efficiency standards across Europe, substituting fossil-fuel-based fertiliser imports with domestic production using surplus renewable electricity and green hydrogen as a feedstock, or by recovering nutrients from human and animal effluents through bio-methanisation. Considering the superior need for food, the first use of clean hydrogen should be fertiliser production, as the Liebreich Ladder indicates. New avenues such as using waste heat from nuclear power plants can also be considered.”

From production systems to multifunctional infrastructure
Following these developments, greenhouse management is expected to become more complex, place-specific, diversified and multi-functional. “From tech-heavy, artificially controlled, human- and soil-less units to low-tech, manually backed-up, cooperative-managed, regional market-oriented small-scale units,” Pascale says. “From stand-alone mega-plants and industrial or data centre-linked systems with waste-heat recovery, to residential and municipal units integrated into buildings, and from local food packaging, medicine and cultivar production to regional energy and water regulation functions.”

Pascale adds that complementarity with livestock for nutrient cycles is relevant within environmental carrying capacity. “Biogas farms can supply energy (CH₄), carbon (CO₂) for plant growth,and nitrogen (N2) and minerals as fertiliser and nutrients. New crops and products may develop, including legumes (peas, beans, lentils, soy), drought-tolerant varieties, longer shelf-life products, poultry, insects, worms, bees and fungi.”

Political context and critical infrastructure
Pascale says policy development is required to support both growers and consumers, enabling access to locally produced food. “Recognising and supporting controlled and irrigated food production systems as critical infrastructures would be a step in the right direction. This supports the case for classifying edible plant production as a protected sector and greenhouses as critical infrastructure under the EU Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive.”

The sector is taking action as well. “Next-generation greenhouses will also need to be robust by design: designed to withstand extreme weather, located in lower-risk areas, and integrated with nearby consumers, food halls and existing buildings in 15-minute neighbourhoods.”

She also notes that public incentives could expand the societal functions of greenhouse systems. “Training in food growing and preservation (drying, canning, fermenting, pickling), seed conservation, circular packaging, low-carbon cooking, prescription gardens, botanical cafés, green schools and food literacy, pollination services, and bio-refining applications in healthcare.”

Municipalities and consumers
A role is foreseen for municipalities in territorial service provision. “A Dutch example is the Collective Heat Act, which organises district heating networks from this year. Municipalities will take the lead,” Tijs says. “They will decide who is allowed to build and operate heat networks. At least half of the company must be publicly owned. In the context of the natural gas phase-out, heating networks will become relevant for Dutch greenhouses.”

Consumer behaviour is also changing, Pascale points out. “Diets are becoming less meat-intensive. Organic food consumption continues to increase in the EU, with demand exceeding supply. A situation where organic food is sold at similar prices to conventional food would indicate a transition underway.”

Governance model
The Dutch Diamond model is often referenced as a governance structure involving public and private sectors, academia, research and citizens. “In the case of greenhouse transformation, it would involve citizens, municipalities, businesses, canteens, banks and insurers, supermarkets and food manufacturers, fertiliser and energy providers, logistics companies, research institutions, vocational training institutes, automation specialists, and data and traceability engineers. Greenhouses could function as a testbed within this model,” Pascale says.

For more information:
PascaleJunkerForesight
Pascale Junker
+352 621 13 90 33
[email protected]
www.PascaleJunkerForesight.com