What You Should Know About Vertical Farming??
Vertical farming is the practice of producing food on vertically inclined surfaces. Instead of farming vegetables and other foods on a single level, such as in a field or a greenhouse, this method produces foods in vertically stacked layers commonly integrated into other structures like a skyscraper, shipping container or repurposed warehouse.
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Using Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) technology, this modern idea uses indoor farming techniques. The artificial control of temperature, light, humidity, and gases makes producing foods and medicine indoor possible. In many ways, vertical farming is similar to greenhouses where metal reflectors and artificial lighting augment natural sunlight. The primary goal of vertical farming is maximizing crops output in a limited space.
How Vertical Farming Works???
There are four critical areas in understanding how vertical farming works: 1. Physical layout, 2. Lighting, 3. Growing medium, and 4. Sustainability features.
Firstly, the primary goal of vertical farming is producing more foods per square meter. To accomplish this goal, crops are cultivated in stacked layers in a tower life structure. Secondly, a perfect combination of natural and artificial lights is used to maintain the perfect light level in the room. Technologies such as rotating beds are used to improve lighting efficiency.
Thirdly, instead of soil, aeroponic, aquaponic or hydroponic growing mediums are used. Peat moss or coconut husks and similar non-soil mediums are very common in vertical farming. Finally, the vertical farming method uses various sustainability features to offset the energy cost of farming. In fact, vertical farming uses 95% less water.
VERTICAL FARMING: THE NEXT BIG THING?
Vertical farming consists of growing crops on substantially sized shelves, stacked on top of one another in enormous warehouses. These are usually built in or close to urban areas. The idea is to grow crops closer to the consumers to save money and energy on transportation. Because the crops are grown indoors without any natural light, LED lights are used to enable the process of photosynthesis to foster the growth of the plants. Photosynthesis is the process of how plants grow using sunlight: they transform sunlight into chemical energy to fuel their needs. The advantage of this system is that the growing cycles are faster, more frequent and are not dependent on the weather or the changing of seasons. Plants grow all day long, regardless of the time of day, because the lights are always on.
Advantages of Vertical Farming
Having greater output from a small cultivation area is not the only advantage of vertical farming. Following are some of the major benefits of vertical farming:
- Preparation for Future: By 2050, around 68% of the world population is expected to live in urban areas, and the growing population will lead to an increased demand for food.4 The efficient use of vertical farming may perhaps play a significant role in preparing for such a challenge.
- Increased And Year-Round Crop Production: Vertical farming allows us to produce more crops from the same square footage of growing area. In fact, 1 acre of an indoor area offers equivalent production to at least 4-6 acres of outdoor capacity.5 According to an independent estimate, a 30-story building with a basal area of 5 acres can potentially produce an equivalent of 2,400 acres of conventional horizontal farming.6 Additionally, year-round crop production is possible in a controlled indoor environment which is completely controlled by vertical farming technologies.
- Less Use Of Water In Cultivation: Vertical farming allows us to produce crops with 70% to 95% less water than required for normal cultivation.7
- Not Affected By Unfavorable Weather Conditions: Crops in a field can be adversely affected by natural calamities such as torrential rains, cyclones, flooding or severe droughts—events which are becoming increasingly common as a result of global warming. Indoor vertical farms are less likely to feel the brunt of the unfavorable weather, providing greater certainty of harvest output throughout the year.
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