Chain of production. Ask, where do the materials to “mimic the soil in the lab” are coming from? What are the required materials to manufacture the nutrients and substrate for plant cell reproduction? Contrary to our usual perception, lab materials aren’t magically put on shelves by lab faeries.
You’ll usually find that it is fossil fuels. Since we currently don’t have a way to mass produce nutrients with sustainable sources (specially ammonia as the source of nitrogen). They’re distilled from oil. Other nutrients are taken from other agricultural produce, that still need land and maintenance to be grown then processed into the materials to make the growth mediums. They’ll say that they will recycle and use produce refuse, but usually this is thrown away by industrialists because the thing is expensive and difficult to recycle from bad materials. Another source is mining, and we all know how we are doing ethically on that front.
At the end, the cost reduce is usually just the product of pushing costs to atmospheric pollution and human exploitation. At a large scale with mass production, the net cost surges up again to the cost of just growing the damn carrot on the ground. Everything looks cheaper on the lab. Nothing can come from nothing.
Chain of production. Ask, where do the materials to “mimic the soil in the lab” are coming from? What are the required materials to manufacture the nutrients and substrate for plant cell reproduction? Contrary to our usual perception, lab materials aren’t magically put on shelves by lab faeries.
You’ll usually find that it is fossil fuels. Since we currently don’t have a way to mass produce nutrients with sustainable sources (specially ammonia as the source of nitrogen). They’re distilled from oil. Other nutrients are taken from other agricultural produce, that still need land and maintenance to be grown then processed into the materials to make the growth mediums. They’ll say that they will recycle and use produce refuse, but usually this is thrown away by industrialists because the thing is expensive and difficult to recycle from bad materials. Another source is mining, and we all know how we are doing ethically on that front.
At the end, the cost reduce is usually just the product of pushing costs to atmospheric pollution and human exploitation. At a large scale with mass production, the net cost surges up again to the cost of just growing the damn carrot on the ground. Everything looks cheaper on the lab. Nothing can come from nothing.