How to meet human development needs while continuously ensuring a year-round balanced supply of the “vegetable basket” and “fruit platter” and reducing resource and environmental costs, so as to achieve sustainable development of protected agriculture, has become a major scientific issue of global concern. Interdisciplinary research between agricultural resources, the environment,and geography couldnot only provide an important disciplinary cornerstone for promoting the green transition of agriculture, but also achieve new development and innovation in this process.
Against this background, Professor Fu Chen and colleagues published the paper “ Assessing environmental and economic costs-benefits of greenhouse agriculture in China ” in Geography and Sustainability . Based on soil sampling, farmer questionnaires, and statistical data from nine major agricultural regions in China, they systematically assessed the costs and benefits, soil quality, and carbon footprint of greenhouse-grown tomatoes, nectarines, and grapes.
Highlights
Agricultural greenhouse yields and earns more, but at significantly higher costs.
Greenhouse soils display acidification and phosphorus/potassium accumulation.
Carbon emission intensity is 2.4–6.7 times higher in greenhouse cultivation.
Carbon emission structure varies by crop and region in agricultural greenhouses.
Core content
Over the past decade, China’s agricultural greenhouse area has expanded by more than 20% annually, reaching 1.2955×10 4 hm² in 2022, ranking first in the world. However, the effects of such large-scale and rapidly expanding greenhouse cultivation on the soil environment, cost-effectiveness, and carbon emissions remain unclear and urgently require systematic assessment. Therefore, this study took China’s nine major agricultural regions as research units and selected typical greenhouse-grown tomatoes, nectarines, and grapes. Using multiple approaches including soil sampling, questionnaire surveys, and data collection, this study systematically compared the costs and benefits of the three typical crops under greenhouse and open-field cultivation, explored the characteristics and trends of soil environmental changes under greenhouse cultivation, and revealed the carbon emission intensity of key inputs such as agricultural plastic film, pesticides, and energy in facility agriculture.
l Cost-effectiveness analysis of vegetable and fruit cultivation under greenhouse-grown and open-field conditions
Although greenhouse-grown has the advantages of high yield and high returns, the high inputs required have instead created a dilemma of low profitability. The yields and output values of the greenhouse-grown tomatoes, nectarines, and grapes were 1.04–1.8 times and 1.7–3.1 times those of open fields, respectively, while total costs were as high as 1.7–4.5 times. The cost composition shows that facility agriculture remains labor-intensive and highly dependent on energy and production inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers, resulting in lower profitability for greenhouse-grown vegetables and fruits than for open fields.
l Effects of greenhouse and open-field cultivation on soil physicochemical properties
Greenhouse-grown soils exhibited widespread acidification and nutrient imbalance. pH in greenhouse-grown soils decreased by 0.25–3.05 units compared with open fields, and the decline was greater for greenhouse-grown fruits (nectarines and grapes) than for protected vegetables (tomatoes). Soil organic matter content increased only modestly, with the average remaining at a moderate level (<30 g/kg). However, phosphorus and potassium were highly enriched, with available phosphorus showing the most pronounced enrichment; in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, available phosphorus in soils under greenhouse-grown tomatoes reached 30 times that of open fields.
l Comparison of carbon emissions under greenhouse and open-field cultivation conditions
The carbon emission intensity of greenhouse-grown tomatoes, nectarines, and grapes was 2.4–6.7 times that of open fields. Carbon emission intensity and structure showed pronounced crop- and region-specific heterogeneity. Carbon emissions from greenhouse-grown nectarines were highly concentrated in agricultural plastic film inputs (>62%), whereas greenhouse-grown tomatoes and grapes both exhibited a dual reliance on pesticides and plastic film (>80%). In addition, for all three greenhouse-grown crops in the Northeast Plain Region, plastic film input was the primary source of carbon emissions, while in the South China Region, pesticide input was consistently the major carbon source.
Outlook
Sustainable development of facility agriculture is a common pursuit for ensuring food security and promoting a green transition, and interdisciplinary research between agricultural resources and the environment and geography has notable advantages. Faced with challenges such as high input and low profitability, soil acidification, high carbon emissions, regional differentiation, and insufficient consideration of social dimensions, there is an urgent need to innovate theories, methods, and data systems for coupled assessment of the “economy–soil–carbon emissions” nexus. Future research should reveal the structure, processes, and coupling mechanisms of greenhouse systems at different scales and establish a coordinated accounting framework for cost–benefit, soil quality, and carbon footprint. It should also expand the range of crops and greenhouse types, incorporate N₂O emissions and social indicators, draw on international low-carbon experience, and develop pathways involving precision control, soilless cultivation, closed-loop water and fertilizer management, and low-carbon energy, thereby supporting the green transition of greenhouse agriculture.
About the Author
Dr. Yan Sun, Associate Professor at the School of Public Administration, Hohai University. Her research focuses on comprehensive farmland consolidation and improvement.
Homepage: https://ggy.hhu.edu.cn/2019/0929/c12362a196571/page.htm
Dr. Fu Chen, Professor at the School of Public Administration, Hohai University. He has long been engaged in research on natural resource management, territorial spatial big data science, and low-carbon development and carbon neutrality.
Citation: Yan Sun, Zhanbin Luo, Jing Ma, Yingnan Zhang, Fu Chen. Assessing environmental and economic costs-benefits of greenhouse agriculture in China. Geography and Sustainability. 2026, 7(6): 100547.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2026.100547
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Geography and Sustainability
Assessing environmental and economic costs-benefits of greenhouse agriculture in China
26-Oct-2026