This study conducts a review of energy use in the EU greenhouse agriculture sector. The studies presented illustrate that energy use in greenhouses is varied and generally dependent on fossil sources. High energy systems, which are more dominant in northern Europe, are generally heavily climate controlled and energy use is dominated by heating and cooling processes, while low energy systems, which are dominant in southern Europe, show a mixture of energy uses including heating, cooling, irrigation, lighting, fertilisers, and pesticides. Our review also provides a discussion of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy sources adoption for greenhouse production. Finally, our review indicates that accurate and reliable studies on energy use in greenhouse production are scarce and fragmented and that a range of differing methodologies are currently used to estimate on-farm energy use. The development of a comprehensive methodology and categorisation for measuring energy use in greenhouse agricultural production would, in our view, catalyse further studies in this sector, considerably improve our understanding of energy use in greenhouses and support the green transition. Based on this, this paper proposes a basic framework for measuring energy use in greenhouse agriculture.

This study conducts a review bringing together data from a large number of studies investigating energy use in EU livestock systems. Such a study has not been conducted previously, and improvements in our understanding of energy use concentrations in livestock systems will aid in developing interventions to achieve the EU’s 2030 and 2050 sustainability targets. The results from the Life Cycle Assessments included in this review indicate that energy use is concentrated in feed, housing, and manure management. In most systems, animal feed is the dominant energy use category. Regarding specific livestock categories, the studies covered indicate that energy use requirements range from 2.1 to 5.3 MJ/kg per ECM for cow milk, 59.2 MJ/kg for a suckler cow–calf, and 43.73 MJ/kg for a dairy bull, 15.9 MJ/kg to 22.7 MJ/kg for pork production, 9.6 MJ/kg to 19.1 MJ/kg for broiler production, 20.5–23.5 MJ/kg for chicken egg production. Our review indicates dominance of and dependence on fossil fuel and discusses the situation and research around transitioning towards renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency. Our analysis indicates that existing energy use data in livestock systems are fragmented and characterized by multiple methodologies and considerable data gaps. In our view, there is a need for the development of a standardized methodology for measuring energy use in livestock systems, which we consider a necessary step to develop interventions that reduce fossil energy use in livestock systems and its contribution to climatic change.

Urban agriculture can be shortly defined as the growing of plants and/or the livestock husbandry in and around cities. Although it has been a common occupation for the urban population all along, recently there is a growing interest in it both from public bodies and researchers, as well as from ordinary citizens who want to engage in self-cultivation. The modern citizen, though, will hardly find the free time to grow his own vegetables as it is a process that requires, in addition to knowledge and disposition, consistency. Given the above considerations, the purpose of this work was to develop an economic robotic system for the automatic monitoring and management of an urban garden. The robotic system was designed and built entirely from scratch. It had to have suitable dimensions so that it could be placed in a balcony or a terrace, and be able to scout vegetables from planting to harvest and primarily conduct precision irrigation based on the growth stage of each plant. Fertigation and weed control will also follow. For its development, a number of technologies were combined, such as Cartesian robots’ motion, machine vision, deep learning for the identification and detection of plants, irrigation dosage and scheduling based on plants’ growth stage, and cloud storage. The complete process of software and hardware development to a robust robotic platform is described in detail in the respective sections. The experimental procedure was performed for lettuce plants, with the robotic system providing precise movement of its actuator and applying precision irrigation based on the specific needs of the plants.