[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Now I know some people pay alot for hydroponically grown artificial light products, and that the electric used isnt usually paid for. For anything that is not illegal however, artificial  cannot make sense. Solar panels are maximum 20 percent efficient,  plants absorb 5 percent of light radiation and are 90 percent efficient in converting it. How on earth  does 1 percent of sunlight make economic sense ?

[Bored chemist]

1% of something that's free is good value.
If you work by artificial light you can work indoors- no frost, no pests (and no pesticides- so you can charge chemophobes a premium).

You can stack lots of plants in a small space- so you save on land costs.

[Hayseed]

To use sunlight you need a green house.  If you grow outside, you expose the crop to the environment.  And if you have ever farmed, you know that it is very dangerous and a gamble.

So, for a guaranteed quality crop, filter the environment.

[alancalverd]

Interesting recent TV program "What Britain buys and sells in a day" had a spot about a potato farmer in Cambridge (where rainfall is minimal) who sells potatoes to Ireland. He explained that the Irish crop is actually unreliable because it is often flooded and rots, and they can't grow the very dry varieties needed to make good chips, whereas he had complete control of the water content of his crop and supplies fish shops throughout the Emerald Isle.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Interesting recent TV program "What Britain buys and sells in a day" had a spot about a potato farmer in Cambridge (where rainfall is minimal) who sells potatoes to Ireland. He explained that the Irish crop is actually unreliable because it is often flooded and rots, and they can't grow the very dry varieties needed to make good chips, whereas he had complete control of the water content of his crop and supplies fish shops throughout the Emerald Isle.

Anglia has always been good for arable farming, wheat production round there is the best in the country for the very reason of the amenable climate, warm dry and sunny, with frequent light rain. Like a polly tunnel.

To use sunlight you need a green house.  If you grow outside, you expose the crop to the environment.  And if you have ever farmed, you know that it is very dangerous and a gamble.

So, for a guaranteed quality crop, filter the environment.

[alancalverd]

warm

?? Dry and sunny is due to the polar wind. It is however true that the absence of hills and trees makes it sensible to erect huge polytunnels and glasshouses and use the sunlight for market gardening. Low rainfall makes for an easy harvest of grain crops. According to the official UNFAO definition, Bishops Stortford (SW corner of East Anglia, in the rain shadow of the Chilterns) is a desert.

[CliveG]

In 2010 I had a free lease on a permaculture farm in the Karoo at De Rust in return for maintaining the farm while the owners went to earn a decent income from safari guiding in Botswana. They had many varieties of fruit trees, a large olive orchard and many veggie patches. All fed from an artesian borehole which flowed freely all year. Solar heating and electricity. Beautiful valley.

Sounds idyllic. But this was a garden of Eden in the dry scrub that attracted pests like one cannot believe. Birds and ants. The worst was a family of porcupines who grew large and burrowed under the fences. Then the baboons descended from the hills and just wrecked the gardens and shredded the trees. Such hard work for such minimal returns.

This was where my late wife and I contracted systemic bat fungus - disseminated histoplasmosis. It likely killed her by inducing cancer from the severe inflammation we both developed. An act of God saved me when a caver diagnosed the symptoms - not the doctors. The natural way of living can be deadly.

In the area was a very large tunnel garden. It developed a mold and had to shut down, stripped of citrus trees, plowed up and completely fumigated. I am not sure just how pesticide-free some of these tunnels are.

[Bored chemist]

Bishops Stortford (SW corner of East Anglia, in the rain shadow of the Chilterns) is a desert.

It's a very wet one
"About 598 mm of precipitation falls annually."
from
https://en.climate-data.org/europe/united-kingdom/england/bishop-s-stortford-6618/

Ditto
https://www.weather-gb.com/en/united-kingdom/bishops-stortford-climate#rainfall


What definition of desert are you using?
It's not the usual one
"Deserts generally receive less than 250 mm (10 in) of precipitation each year."
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert#Physical_geography

[alancalverd]

I blame climate change. Must glue myself to a train.

[Gutalin]

And if you have ever farmed, you know that it is very dangerous and a gamble.