Urban warehouses, abandoned buildings, and high-rise buildings are the places where you are least likely to find green seed sprouts. However, from Singapore to the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, vertical farms are thriving, and they are expected to provide a new and environmentally friendly way to provide safer food for the rapidly growing population of cities around the world.
The world's largest vertical farm is about to open its doors. In March of this year, the world's largest vertical farm is expected to open its doors in the city of Scranton. The farm is built by the Green Spirit Farm (GSF), based in New Buffalo, Michigan, USA. The farm has a one-story building with an area of ​​3.25 hectares and a six-story rack that can accommodate a total of 17 million plants. Moreover, this is just a typical representative of a growing vertical farm.
The concept of a vertical farm by Dixon, an ecologist at Columbia University. Despermer was first proposed in 1998. His idea was to produce food (including farmed fish and poultry) on buildings with a height of 30 stories below the city to supply nearby residents. The 30-storey vertical farm in this concept, powered by solar energy, wind and inedible plant waste, is irrigated with sewage. He envisions that this vertical farm can grow more than 100 different fruits and vegetables, including strawberries, blueberries and even small bananas, providing enough food and water to 50,000 people a year. People can also recycle water in a closed irrigation system to reduce water consumption, avoid soil loss caused by runoff, transport costs will also approach zero, and more importantly, reduce vegetables and fruits far from the city. The carbon dioxide produced by the transportation.
In this vertical farm in the city of Scranton, plants feed on oil-free nutrient solutions; LEDs (light-emitting diodes) that simulate sunlight provide illumination. Moreover, it is not difficult to manage these plants: the control software allows the plants to rotate like a dance to get the same amount of light; the software also guides the pump to ensure that all nutrient solutions are evenly sprayed.
Daniel, R&D manager at GSF. Crook said that farm managers can monitor the farm in all directions through their smartphones. He said that the new farm in Shackron will plant 14 lettuces a year, plus spinach, tomatoes, peppers, basil and strawberries. Its production will be 10 times the production of the company's first vertical farm (starting in New Buffalo, Michigan in 2011).
The concept of vertical agriculture has also traveled across the ocean to Tokyo, Japan. There, a company called Nuvege (new vegetable) is running a four-story vertical farm with its main product being lettuce. For indoor agriculture, lettuce is a very good choice because the entire surface of the photosynthesis can be eaten, making the operation more efficient. Nuvege said that they did not use the soil when planting lettuce, so the resulting lettuce will not be infested by pests, nor other harmful substances produced by the soil, and can be eaten directly without washing with water.
Vertical Farm Benefits One of the missions of vertical farms is to avoid the problems inherent in growing crops in fields that are prone to drought and disease, while mitigating the growing tensions in agricultural land. Proponents also see vertical agriculture as an important means of feeding the rapidly growing urban population of the world. According to the United Nations, by 2050, the population of 86 in developed countries will live in cities. As the global population continues to proliferate, Mother Earth is barely able to nurture so many children, and the food problem becomes the sword of Damocles hanging over the world. Vertical agriculture may be able to contribute to the solution of this problem.
Vertical agriculture is also expected to make food supply more secure, because even when extreme weather comes, production will continue. Moreover, vertical farms do not need herbicides or pesticides at all, as long as they carefully protect their indoor farms from pests. More importantly, they also store water better than traditional farms.
The initial construction of vertical farms by GSF was also spurred by the long-term drought in the United States. Crook said: Water is a big problem. Vertical farms can save water compared to traditional farming methods. 98. There are many factors that can be used to achieve this water saving effect, including the use of a dehumidifier to extract water from the air in the planting room. . In this way, the dehumidifier can also make the humidity of the room not too high, because the humidity is too high may cause problems such as mold on the leaves.
The cost of light is also expected to be significantly reduced. Most vertical farms use natural light as much as possible. In sunny, close to the equator, the Skygreens vertical farm founded by entrepreneur Huang Heshun is hailed as the world's first commercial vertical farm. This vertical farm does not need artificial light to promote crop growth. .
On the farm, a 9-meter-high triangular lightweight aluminum structure supports a layer of culture trays to grow different types of vegetables, including Chinese cabbage and lettuce. The outer layer is enclosed by lightweight plexiglass to form a greenhouse environment. The stepped arrangement ensures that all plants receive adequate light. The nutrients come from the sink below the tower. Each shelf is rotated continuously. When the shelf is turned to the top, it can be exposed to sunlight, and the temperature is high. When it is turned to the bottom, the temperature drops, and the temperature difference can make the fruits and vegetables more sweet.
The LED lighting system of the Nuvege vertical farm in Japan uses artificial light to take care of two types of chlorophyll. They let one type of chlorophyll receive the baptism of red light, and let another type of chlorophyll accept the touch of blue light.
Despermer said: In this way, you can grow vegetables no matter where you are. Indeed, in this way, Nuvege can produce 6 million lettuces a year, with customers including Subway and Tokyo Disney.
But using this method also has its own short board, that is, the electricity bill may soar. LEDs accurately provide the light needed to grow crops in plant laboratories, but at present, the efficiency of LEDs is only 28, which makes the production cost of this planting method very high, thus blocking the pace of its spread to areas rich in cheap vegetables. However, optical engineers at Philips in the Netherlands have recently developed an LED with an efficiency of 68, which is expected to significantly reduce the cost of light. In addition, a new generation of light sources, including high-pressure sodium lamps and fluorescent lamps, is also expected to solve the lighting problem because of its low operating costs.
New research shows that plants do not need artificial sunlight to be present. Despermer said that during the day, plants will enjoy different densities of light, and simulating these bright changes will also save energy. This kind of skill also has a place in GSF: researchers use infrared LEDs to simulate the dusk of the twilight, only 5 minutes, pepper and tomatoes will enter the flowering period faster.
Research progress in other fields is also expected to continue to influx and promote the development of vertical farms. The US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently conducting experiments in Texas using an 18-story farm to produce genetically modified crops that make useful proteins for vaccines. Adversity is also fueling the situation: In 2011, the earthquake in Japan caused the Fukushima nuclear accident, which also promoted vertical agriculture innovation, because many areas affected by radiation could no longer be used to grow crops.
Insiders pointed out that there are many problems in agriculture nowadays. There are many different ways to solve these problems. Vertical farms may be an indispensable part of them.
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