How the rise of urban farming can enable the scaling of biofuels

Note: I am NOT trying to say that clearing natural land or displacing food production to increase the production of biofuels is okay. That is not what I wrote this post to share. I fully understand and acknowledge that neither creating new farmland or displacing food production are acceptable in the modern day and age.

Urban farming is one the rise in the US. Rising grocery costs are driving more and more Americans in urban environments to source fresh produce from urban farms. This shift in the location of production will free up land for biofuel production that does not compete with food nor drive land use change.

A growing trend in the US is replacing lawns with urban farms

Urban farming in the US focuses mostly on fresh produce as that is the easiest to cultivate in urban environments on limited land. Cultivating fresh produce in urban environments will shift more production from rural farms to the urban centers where demand is high. A recent trend in the US is to covert suburban lawns into urban farms. This trend could dramatically increase the quantity of fresh produced that can be produced in urban environments because suburban lawns represent more land area than vacant lots. Often times the owner of a home with an urban farm yard sells some of the produce they grow which means that not every single yard needs to be converted into an urban farm. The most realistic outcome is that in each neighborhood their are multiple urban farm yards that produce fresh produce for the rest of the neighborhood. This could yield more than just relying on vacant lots for land.

If this trend continues then what will happen is that more and more of the rural land currently used to cultivate fresh produce will become redundant. The land used to cultivate fresh produce on an industrial scale will lose economic value because more and more of the production of fresh produce will be shifted to urban farms. This land will likley end up abandoned which will make it an environmental and economic liability. What we can do to prevent this land from becoming an environmental and economic liability is to repurpose it to cultivate oilseeds in a regenerative manner.

This is an industrial scale lettuce farm in central CA. The field shown in this picture is an example of land which is currently used to cultivate fresh produce on an industrial scale. If the production of fresh produce by urban farms increases then the demand for output from land like this will decline and thus it will be freed up for regenerative oilseed cultivation.

If we choose to repurpose the land that we currently use to cultivate produce on an industrial scale for regenerative oilseed farming then we could drastically increase the sustainable supply of seed oils. Seed oils are a primary feedstock for the production of drop-in biofuels which can be used in existing ICE engines without modification. In this context turning rural produce fields into regenerative oilseed fields will not compete with food production because the production to fresh produce will have shifted to urban farms. This freed up land could significantly increase the supply of sustainable oilseeds that can be used for drop-in biofuel production.

The supply of HEFA feedstocks for biofuel production right now is limited due to the limited supply of used cooking oil, animal tallow and byproduct oil of livestock feed production. Converting existing industrial scale produce fields into regenerative oilseed fields could significantly increase the supply of HEFA feedstock which neither displaces food nor drives land use change. This increase in supply could greatly expand the decarbonization potential of drop-in biofuels.

This setup is a win-win for several players

1. Suburban yards are turned into productive spaces rather than unproductive consumers of freshwater

2. Food milage decreases which means better quality produce for consumers

3. Diesel usage is decreased due to the decreased need to truck fresh produce long distances

4. Fields which are currently used to cultivate fresh produce on an industrial scale can be repurposed for regenerative seed oil cultivation

5. The increased supply of sustainable seed oil will increase the decarbonization potential of drop-in biofuels

6. The reduction in diesel demand from point #3 will reduce the total amount of drop-in biofuel that will need to be produced to replace fossil fuel derived diesel

In this sense the rise of urban farming is not just a food solution it is also an energy solution

Sources:

- https://www.wusf.org/economy-business/2025-12-15/urban-agriculture-pasco-county-front-yard-farm-growing-trend

- https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/biofuels-energy-transportation#:\~:text=BIOMASS%2DBASED%20HYDROCARBON%20%22DROP%2DIN%22%20FUELS&text=Hydrocarbons%20can%20also%20be%20produced,%2C%20pumps%2C%20and%20other%20infrastructure.

- https://www.iea.org/reports/is-the-biofuel-industry-approaching-a-feedstock-crunch#

- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13574809.2016.1167589#:\~:text=Abstract,3.

- https://www.sustainableagriculture.eco/post/the-environmental-impact-of-food-transportation-eating-locally-and-seasonally