Indoor Vertical Farm Capable Of Feeding More Than 180,000
Vertical farming is regarded as being the latest development in the farming industry that is quickly gaining support from a growing number of farmers worldwide. Right now you can find numerous vertical farming projects that are currently underway in multiple countries: Germany, France, Italy, the US, UK, Singapore, and elsewhere.
One vertical farming agriculture startup that is quickly gaining a lot of support is Plenty, and the project has thus far raised hundreds of millions in funding. This indoor vertical farming startup is credited with recently having successfully conducted the largest agriculture tech funding round in history; Jeff Bezos happens to be one of the investors.
The company is now looking to open a second farm in the US that is going to be capable of feeding more than 180,000 people.
The vertical farming project, Plenty, has already tested growing hundreds of different kinds of crops. At the new facility, they allegedly plan to start off with growing a variety of leafy greens and then they will transition to growing things like watermelons, tomatoes, and other crops. The plan is to have their facility operational by sometime next year.
The crops that they are growing are grown without any sunlight and use LED lights instead. They also aren't grown in soil like traditional crops, instead seeds are woven into mesh cloth and grown without any soil. The crops get sprayed with a special nutrient spray and water; using aeroponics farming methods.
The vertical farming process enables the farmer to have a lot more control over the environment and crops. And there are an increasing number of farmers in the US, throughout Europe, and other areas, who are looking to vertical farming as an option over traditional farming because of the benefits that it offers.
Industry experts have said that the growing demand from consumers for more GMO-free and organic foods is playing a crucial role in fueling the vertical farming trend; it's seen as a major driving force.
Some setbacks that they see for those who are interested in getting involved with this method of growing however, are things like the initial high cost of lighting and the cost for continued maintenance. However, despite those concerns, we can see that there are still many farmers who are opting to transition to this method of growing.
Plenty has been certified organic and they hope to be able to bring their organic products to market at a very competitive price so that it is as close to the cost of traditional produce as possible; giving consumers more options.
Pics:
via Australia Online Courses
via SavetheEarthcoop.com
Sources:
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/jeff-bezos-spending-millions-on-indoor-farming-startup
http://www.businessinsider.com/food-investment-vertical-farming-2017-8
http://www.businessinsider.com/vertical-farming-company-plenty-investment-second-farm-seattle-2017-11
https://www.whatech.com/market-research/agriculture/379618-22-cagr-expected-to-witness-for-europe-vertical-farming-market-during-2016-to-2021-according-to-new-research-report
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https://steemit.com/food/@doitvoluntarily/former-bomb-shelter-turned-into-underground-farm
Love feel good stories like this. We can FEED the World! No more Excuses...
Fascinating and innovative use of space and resources. The Netherlands-- evidently-- is on its way to becoming a world leader in many areas of agriculture in terms of effective yield per acre... using some of these technologies. I just hope they manage to keep the nutritional value intact in this kind of densepack situation...
As Shakespeare said, "ay, there's the rub".
Dr. Elaine Ingham has done a great job describing how the Soil Food Web works and I have yet to see any commercial operation that does much more than produce "food-photography" worthy fruits and veggies with the nutritional value of sawdust.
I'm sure
AmazonI mean WholeFoods will move tons of the stuff.Oh look, Jeff Bezos is investing in it.
There's no reason to think that commercially available fully organic Complete Nutrients (3D Organic's Nutrients) used to grown fruits and vegetables aeroponically wouldn't translate directly to Nutritionally superior products to those grown in the best organic soil while cutting the water use down by 95% while increasing the growing time and production not once but two fold or more.
The "soil food web" happens just the same but with much more exacted precision and without pests and oxygen levels that would make even the most hardy fungus no match AT-ALL for aeroponically grown plants, in such aeroponic systems, it's not as if these plants are hollow or lack substance, and if that's the case it's not because of the inherent idea of aeroponics/hydroponics but solely and only a matter of what nutrients and how much you provide because you could be growing commercial and conventional and the nutritional and flavor payload of those crops would be outmatched by magnitudes by growing organically/salt-free nutrients.
That is if the plants are being provided with not only essentials but the Complete nutrients including the bacteria, fungi and other single celled organisms along with all the macro and micro nutrients found in soil PLUS many that aren't native or abundant to certain regions, and then this exacted, precise, utmost calculated and considered nutritional water is then delivered to the plants in an optimal way, in turn the plants, which simply take what they require, develop and utilize all the nutrients as they would in the soil, yet the rest of the nutrients get recirculated and captured with zero waste or run off and the plants then have a supreme environment to metabolize (Oxygen consuming) the nutrients along with all the beneficial microbes and mycorrhizae that also, like the plant roots, thrive in such Oxygen rich environment provided by the suspended mostly Void, substrate, while some more sophisticated mediums like SureToGrow utilizing a water wicking away design which doesn't retain water (something like 0.1% water retention after you take it out of water for 5 seconds) and these substrates provide for maximum air contact to the roots and can be used to grow extremely efficiently and cost effective, nutritionally packed foods with little medium as the root-ball size medium/substrate required for plants (usually a 3 inch diameter by 3 inch tall net basket or smaller) is insurmountably tiny compared to most DWC or other Hydroponics, and like suretogrow, many of the substrates can be reused for quite some time, the old roots getting pulled out or trimmed off and the rest left to feed the organisms which will feed the new plant.
Combined with Carbon Dioxide systems providing plants with their optimal 1400-1600 ppm CO2 levels any decent system would create some of the most stress free, pure Product, where all the energy is concentrated into delivering quality and utilized at utmost efficiency creating nutritional content not matched by soil and certainly not Confetti.
Ultimately it comes down to what you feed your plants, because you have complete, total control and as such there is no reason to believe that soil could compare in regard to nutrition, flavor, growing season length, simply because of pests and climate.
I totally agree.
The sticky point is:
I don't see Jeff Bezos being in it to cure obesity or world hunger and in my opinion, most consumers think if it looks good, and has that "organic" seal of approval, it must be good for you.
Nutritious food has a lower profit margin than good looking food, especially the kind that has been genetically modified to never spoil and for most people in that industry, it's a business and profit comes first.
Technology can improve everything even food production.
This is wonderful to hear! I love good posts like this! Happy Sunday!
I had never thought of that before, but vertical farming sounds like a brilliant idea.
thanks for checking it out :)
I actually saw this while attending the Mother Earth News Fair in Pennsylvania last month. I was absolutely fascinated by it!
I was amazed at the ease in which this can be done. I cannot say enough to sing its praises!
Upped and Steemed
Sounds a good idea, just need to sort the lighting out, surely someone will come up with a working idea.
Wow! This shows how backward i am, i so much thank God for steemit.
Never knew crops could be grown out of soil..jess the word is turning to something else.
I'll prefer vertical farming to traditional aleast it offers control over the plants.
Thanks for sharing this, it was really helpful
Good post
yeah great to see this on here,it's a great way to grow wheat grass. On a much smaller scale I done a workshop on pallet vertical gardening, easy and cheap, it's great for salads and herbs. Really good for people with little space for growing food.