Will Vertical Farming Feed the World?

            Vertical farms have become one of the buzzwords at USDA for a new type of modern farming. It can allow for the growing of an acre of crops in about 300 square feet, about the same area as a shipping container. 

Freight Farms Leafy Green Machine 

It is in an enclosed environment, oftentimes super insulated, for the purpose of growing of plants. The structures for the growing of crops for vertical farms can range from retrofitted buildings to modified shipping containers. The “inputs” for a normal farm (light, air, water, fertilizer) now becomes the farmer’s responsibility, not Mother Nature because the farm is disconnected from Mother Nature. Hence the need for automation.

One method of vertical farming is using horizontal growing areas for the plants.

If you were to live inside of a vertical farm the temperature would be constant year-round, LED lights would go off and on at predetermined times, plants would be stacked upon each other, pulses of fertilizers would come and go, and irrigation might be hydroponic, aeroponic, or traditional. All these factors sensed and controlled by an electronic “brain” that controls the entire system.

Another method of vertical farming is to grow plants vertically.

But is vertical farming the boon to “feeding the world” that it claims? Is vertical farming economically viable? A lot of these answers are still up in the air because the concept is so new and what we call “vertical farms” can be so variable. Vertical farming is in its infancy.

            Ten years ago, vertical farms successfully grew many types of leafy green vegetables like lettuce, spinach, and arugula. Just as in home gardens, fruiting crops like tomatoes, squash, and raspberries were more difficult to grow. There is some discussion in academic circles whether crops grown in vertical farms aimed at “feeding the world” should be the higher-value horticultural crops or staple crops like multiple crops of wheat but with 70-to-80-day turnovers.

Most vertical farms employ hydroponics (growing in water with a substrate) much like cannabis is grown inside buildings. Hydroponic growing of vegetables may present a quality problem IMHO.

In vertical farms all the “inputs” (light, water, fertilizer) must be supplied to the plants rather than taking them for free from good old Mother Nature. Once a vertical farm is installed, these previously free “inputs” are considered “operating costs”.

Vertical farming has a future, but what that future is remains to be seen.