GREENBOX Technology III - Financial Feasibility for Crop Production in Urban Settings

IF 1.2 4区 农林科学 Q3 AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING
Ankit Kumar Singh, Boris Bravo-Ureta, Richard McAvoy, Xiusheng Yang
{"title":"GREENBOX Technology III - Financial Feasibility for Crop Production in Urban Settings","authors":"Ankit Kumar Singh, Boris Bravo-Ureta, Richard McAvoy, Xiusheng Yang","doi":"10.13031/ja.15345","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Highlights We proposed to use GREENBOX technology for urban crop production in warehouse settings. We assessed the profitability of the application of GREENBOX technology using Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) to evaluate the Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and Payback Period (PP). We conducted sensitivity analyses on NPV, IRR, and PP over different scenarios. GREENBOX was found financially feasible for all the hypothetical scenarios in major cities in the USA. Abstract . Food security pressure, especially in urban areas, continues to rise due to surging demand for food resulting from a growing population and declining resources. It has been critical to improve crop production and make food readily available to consumers without traveling long distances in an economically sustainable manner. The novel GREENBOX technology uses Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) principles for leafy green crop production in urban structures. A GREENBOX is an individual thermally insulated chamber with an artificial lighting source and a soilless cultivation system (hydroponics) in an environment that is controlled at the grower's discretion. This study performed a financial feasibility study of GREENBOX technology for urban crop production in various scenarios to evaluate the system's profitability from an individual business's perspective and used market prices of the goods and services paid for or received by a project. The representative GREENBOX unit in the base case scenario had dimensions of a standard shipping pallet (1.0 x 1.2 x 0.9 m, or 40 x 48 x 36 in) and included thermally insulated walls, an LED artificial lighting source, a camera for monitoring growth, a Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) hydroponic growth platform, and an environmental monitoring and control system. A warehouse can host numerous GREENBOX units for mass production. We carried out a benefit-cost analysis by assessing the Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and Payback Period (PP). These parameters were evaluated for a base case scenario from data collected or estimated for a representative GREENBOX unit. We also applied the base case scenario to investigate the financial performance of the GREENBOX setup in selected urban areas in the United States; New York City (New York), Miami (Florida), Los Angeles (California), Dallas (Texas), Atlanta (Georgia), Chicago (Illinois), Boston (Massachusetts), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). We then carried out a sensitivity analysis on NPV, IRR, and PP by keeping all the parameters in the base case scenario invariant except for one at a time. We obtained a summary equation to understand the variation of the financial parameters with changing lettuce sale price, electricity cost, rental cost, labor cost, and the number of GREENBOX units. A GREENBOX unit would require an initial investment of $398 to assemble and an annual outflow of $157 to cover operating expenses. GREENBOX cultivation was financially viable in the base case scenario and in all the cities studied, with varying degrees of financial performance. The sensitivity analysis revealed that GREENBOX cultivation was financially viable in all scenarios except when skilled labor costs were beyond $19/hr, and there were fewer than 300 GREENBOX units. A statistically significant regression equation was derived in which rising rental costs, labor costs, and electricity prices negatively impacted the NPV, while the rising lettuce sales price and the number of GREENBOX units positively impacted the NPV. GREENBOX farming may serve as a local source of fresh crops for urban customers, with various benefits including improved food security, greater freshness and nutrition of food, the potential to contribute to the local economy by the creation of jobs and revenues from sales, and educational opportunities through extension programs on food nutrition and production. Keywords: Agricultural business, Environmental control, GREENBOX, Lettuce, Urban agriculture.","PeriodicalId":29714,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the ASABE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the ASABE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.13031/ja.15345","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Highlights We proposed to use GREENBOX technology for urban crop production in warehouse settings. We assessed the profitability of the application of GREENBOX technology using Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) to evaluate the Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and Payback Period (PP). We conducted sensitivity analyses on NPV, IRR, and PP over different scenarios. GREENBOX was found financially feasible for all the hypothetical scenarios in major cities in the USA. Abstract . Food security pressure, especially in urban areas, continues to rise due to surging demand for food resulting from a growing population and declining resources. It has been critical to improve crop production and make food readily available to consumers without traveling long distances in an economically sustainable manner. The novel GREENBOX technology uses Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) principles for leafy green crop production in urban structures. A GREENBOX is an individual thermally insulated chamber with an artificial lighting source and a soilless cultivation system (hydroponics) in an environment that is controlled at the grower's discretion. This study performed a financial feasibility study of GREENBOX technology for urban crop production in various scenarios to evaluate the system's profitability from an individual business's perspective and used market prices of the goods and services paid for or received by a project. The representative GREENBOX unit in the base case scenario had dimensions of a standard shipping pallet (1.0 x 1.2 x 0.9 m, or 40 x 48 x 36 in) and included thermally insulated walls, an LED artificial lighting source, a camera for monitoring growth, a Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) hydroponic growth platform, and an environmental monitoring and control system. A warehouse can host numerous GREENBOX units for mass production. We carried out a benefit-cost analysis by assessing the Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and Payback Period (PP). These parameters were evaluated for a base case scenario from data collected or estimated for a representative GREENBOX unit. We also applied the base case scenario to investigate the financial performance of the GREENBOX setup in selected urban areas in the United States; New York City (New York), Miami (Florida), Los Angeles (California), Dallas (Texas), Atlanta (Georgia), Chicago (Illinois), Boston (Massachusetts), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). We then carried out a sensitivity analysis on NPV, IRR, and PP by keeping all the parameters in the base case scenario invariant except for one at a time. We obtained a summary equation to understand the variation of the financial parameters with changing lettuce sale price, electricity cost, rental cost, labor cost, and the number of GREENBOX units. A GREENBOX unit would require an initial investment of $398 to assemble and an annual outflow of $157 to cover operating expenses. GREENBOX cultivation was financially viable in the base case scenario and in all the cities studied, with varying degrees of financial performance. The sensitivity analysis revealed that GREENBOX cultivation was financially viable in all scenarios except when skilled labor costs were beyond $19/hr, and there were fewer than 300 GREENBOX units. A statistically significant regression equation was derived in which rising rental costs, labor costs, and electricity prices negatively impacted the NPV, while the rising lettuce sales price and the number of GREENBOX units positively impacted the NPV. GREENBOX farming may serve as a local source of fresh crops for urban customers, with various benefits including improved food security, greater freshness and nutrition of food, the potential to contribute to the local economy by the creation of jobs and revenues from sales, and educational opportunities through extension programs on food nutrition and production. Keywords: Agricultural business, Environmental control, GREENBOX, Lettuce, Urban agriculture.
GREENBOX技术III -城市环境下作物生产的财务可行性
我们建议将GREENBOX技术用于城市农作物的仓库生产。我们使用效益成本分析(BCA)来评估净现值(NPV)、内部收益率(IRR)和投资回收期(PP),以评估应用GREENBOX技术的盈利能力。我们对不同情景下的NPV、IRR和PP进行了敏感性分析。GREENBOX在美国主要城市的所有假设场景中都是经济可行的。摘要由于人口增长和资源减少导致粮食需求激增,粮食安全压力,特别是城市地区的粮食安全压力继续上升。以经济上可持续的方式,在不长途跋涉的情况下,提高作物产量,使消费者随时可以获得食物,这一点至关重要。新型的GREENBOX技术采用了控制环境农业(CEA)原则,用于城市结构中的绿叶作物生产。GREENBOX是一个独立的隔热室,有人工光源和无土栽培系统(水培),环境由种植者自行控制。本研究对GREENBOX技术在不同情况下用于城市作物生产的财务可行性进行了研究,从个体企业的角度评估该系统的盈利能力,并使用了项目支付或收到的商品和服务的市场价格。在基本情况下,典型的GREENBOX单元具有标准运输托盘的尺寸(1.0 x 1.2 x 0.9 m,或40 x 48 x 36英寸),包括隔热墙,LED人工照明光源,用于监测生长的摄像机,营养膜技术(NFT)水培生长平台以及环境监测和控制系统。一个仓库可以容纳大量的GREENBOX单元进行大规模生产。我们通过评估净现值(NPV)、内部收益率(IRR)和投资回收期(PP)进行了收益-成本分析。这些参数是根据收集到的数据或为具有代表性的GREENBOX单元估计的基本情况进行评估的。我们还应用基本情景来调查GREENBOX设置在美国选定城市地区的财务绩效;纽约市(纽约州)、迈阿密(佛罗里达州)、洛杉矶(加利福尼亚州)、达拉斯(德克萨斯州)、亚特兰大(佐治亚州)、芝加哥(伊利诺伊州)、波士顿(马萨诸塞州)和费城(宾夕法尼亚州)。然后,我们对NPV、IRR和PP进行了敏感性分析,方法是保持基本情景中的所有参数不变,每次只保留一个参数。我们得到一个总结方程来理解财务参数随生菜销售价格、电费成本、租金成本、人工成本和GREENBOX单位数量的变化。一个GREENBOX单元需要初始投资398美元来组装,每年流出157美元来支付运营费用。在基本情景和所有研究的城市中,GREENBOX种植在财务上是可行的,具有不同程度的财务绩效。敏感性分析显示,除了熟练劳动力成本超过19美元/小时外,GREENBOX培养在所有情况下都是经济可行的,并且GREENBOX单位少于300个。推导出具有统计学意义的回归方程,其中租金成本、人工成本和电价的上升对NPV产生负向影响,而生菜销售价格和GREENBOX单位数量的上升对NPV产生正向影响。GREENBOX农业可以作为当地新鲜作物的来源,为城市消费者提供各种好处,包括改善食品安全,提高食品的新鲜度和营养,通过创造就业机会和销售收入为当地经济做出贡献,以及通过推广食品营养和生产计划提供教育机会。关键词:农业经营,环境控制,GREENBOX,生菜,都市农业
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
CiteScore
3.10
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信