VERTICAL FARMING – PROVIDING PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS TO URBAN CITY CHALLENGES

Ratan Deep

Some estimates state that in 50 yrs 70% of the world population will be in “cities”, around 7 billion mouths to feed with a challenging food supply, what if farming moves from its traditional country side towards urban cities.

Scientists has been working for this future to address food which can grow in “all seasons”, everywhere” and in a  “ sustainable manner”. This is what we call as “urban agriculture “and this will shape in the form of vertical farming” based in platforms known as   “ agricultural towers”.

Agriculture has found its mutation since pre – history with the help of improved seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, machines and recently into innovative technologies like GMO and Precision Farming but all of these were/are happening in open field countryside farms which are gigantic food factories. Focused on three basic requirements demand for more food, ever faster production and ever lower costs but this cannot continue without harming the resources.

SOME ANOMALIES/REALITIES WHICH EXISTS TODAY IN AGRICULTURE

Imbalance of Agricultural resources: in some places too much food is being produced and in others not enough to go around.

Waste: Every second around the world 40 tonnes of food are discarded (that which rots during transportation) this is 1/3rd of global agri produce.

The realization which is coming is, the issue is not “producing more “but “producing better” The question is then how can we reduce this phenomena and balance global production. Urban agriculture is a strategic solution to these two problems.

MOVEMENT FORWARD IN EFFORT : ‘ Make food supply back to close where people live’

ROOFTOP FARMS :  THE FIRST STEP.

Roof top farms are the first great step in vertical farming, they take traditional agriculture and put them on the rooftop

Lets have a look at some e.g.

In Montreal “ Lufa Farm estd 2011” is located 10 minutes from downtown on a rooftop, where it is close to the consumers and the harvest can be used on the same day, all veggies travel fewer then 8 miles where the consumption happens.

So what is the change that is happening at the varietal level today our food chain is very long and travel huge distances as an example, tomatoes take weeks before reaching our plates and goes through depots, cargoes ships.. and ripening happens on the way and that is the “ big difference “ which is happening in these vertical farms “ products selected for their quality ( harvested when the product is ripe which means the sugar content is at the highest and taste at its best not for their capacity to stand up to transportation”)

CONSUMER AWARENESS

There is growing awareness among consumers who want to know “where food is produced and how it is produced” locally grown is gaining momentum.

NEW YORK: ROOF TOP FARMS

In NewYork it is estimated that there is approx 3000 acres of flat roof top space in buildings which can hold rooftop farms.

There are different types of rooftop farms one can see in New York “open air farms” “ greenhouse farms” and this is primarily because of entrepreneurs support.

Brooklyn which was a market garden area and had disappeared by the industrial revolution is returning back by the roof tops it is one of the most concentrated place in the world for rooftop farming.

Rooftop farming helps to solve the” distance problem” BUT the multiplication and the large scale crop production needs to come in that is where Vertical farming steps in

THE NEXT LEVEL : VERTICAL FARMING:

THE IDEA: Prof Dickson D Despommier is an emeritus professor of microbiology and public health at Columbia university has developed his concept of vertical farming  which started with his students of ecology in his class and evolved over a 10 year period starting in 1999. His Hypothesis towers capable of feeding 30,000 people for an entire year.

 His simple way of explaining “vertical farming” is very appealing what he says is “ If you take a farm that is entirely horizontal and make it like an apartment like for plants, for 1 acre of indoor farm is equal to 10 acres of outdoor farm” so in essence the space has been compressed and maximized efficiency by growing this in closed structures. What is different here we grow foods in green houses so what is the mystery? it is making it “dense” enough in production to supply large population is like converting a single dwelling house into an apartment.

THE DESIGN:A new generation of architects has taken up this concept to make this a terrain for futuristic experimentation, some towers are conceptualized and designed to be rising 150 m with 120 production floors with current day use technologies like hydroponics which serves to address the issue of weight which might be exerted in the building structure.

Hydroponics on an average uses 10% of water which traditional agriculture uses – water which will be the most sought after resources in the near future more and more.

Hydroponics also enables to increase the “ density “ of plants in a small space hence increased production. Each plant is individually fed according to its type and growth phase. So in this controlled environment we can grow more crop cycles per year then we could have done outdoors.

THE COMPUTER MONITORING TECHNOLOGY : The Advent of computer monitoring such that the solutions can maintain near optimum levels and hence  the plants get constant benefit out of it, the ability for the roof to open/close and ventilate, the ability to underbench heating system such that the rootbulb stay warm all these provide the ability to grow 15 – 20 times use less than 10% water.

PROTECTION AGAINST PESTS:If pests are able to intrude the growing environment the use of “integrated antiparasitic approach” which is an old fashioned methods control aphids by distributing lady bugs ( lady bugs in open field control is pretty impossible as the pests are too many) however in this model one can protect the crops without the use of chemicals.

ELECTROLUMINISCENT DIODES/LEDS: So what about those places which does not have year round sunshine countries in Northern Hemisphere how this will be able to grow food even in the depths of winter? Obvious question there will be an obligation to use artificial lights and this will weigh heavily on the cost ?

So Phillips lighting company in 2013 announced a 68% efficient light it went from 50 lumens per kilowatt hour to 200 lumens per kilowatt hour ( 4 times) which came in the form of Electroluminescent Diodes or LEDs.

It is estimated BY 2020 LEDS will cover 70% of the worlds lighting needs and now used in food production.

University of Wageningen in Netherlands Professor Tom Dueck is pioneering this research in LED.

LEDS bring in benefit much energy efficient then high pressure sodium lights

LEDS can be placed “any place very close” to the plant which cannot be done with other traditional lights and can burn the plant.

In essence you will have always spring in LED rooms no matter whatever is the outdoor temperature and hence have faster growth, LED are becoming new artificial suns.

It is estimated that with LED lights  25% more production benefits compared to traditional lighting.

INNOVATION OF LIGHTING IMPACT IN PLANTS :

For Agronomists a new research opportunity has opened up in the form of making a “light recipe” which light combinations in space and time will effectively help in growth of the plant for e.g. blue light will keep the plant shorter and red light will have the most energy put into it and have the elongation of the plants, different combinations effect the time of flowering, size of leaves, fruits.By regulating the light spectrum we can decide the flavor of the fruit. 

CONCLUSION :

Who Knows how tall you can build a structure for vertical farming? It is upto the architects and engineers to figure it out?

Will the “city states” like Singapore, Monaco, Luxembourg which are limited in land and are completely dependent on other countries take the lead in constructing vertical farms full scale and make it a part of their national policy.

We can see instances in many places across the world where the technology has moved finally from prototype phase to a commercial one.

We also see that positioning of vertical farming in different regions of the world are different as an e.g. Shanghai which sees vertical farming as a “lifestyle Product “and plants are displayed as works of art.

How long will we have to wait till these technologies are accessible to the world ¾ of the populated cities are in Asia and for them time is running out.

Will this plant factories transform into an industrial scale in near future and agricultural becomes an industrial process and might even attract young people to work in agriculture.

Will this model be able to reconcile economic development to sustainable development and draw in more and more investors to scale it up or supported through public policy?

At the end we all feel very happy when we see grow what we are going to eat, will there be a vegetable factory for each community ?

Lets revisit back to the core message Vertical agriculture is not seeking to replace traditional agriculture, but is providing practical solutions to local problems, it has its own place besides rural agriculture in the service of tomorrows cities

The demand is there, the technology is available and vertical farming has started to prove its economic efficiency in many urban places today.

In an era where there is so much research in Artificial Intelligence, Driverless cars, Hyperloops, manned mission to mars, vertical farming will also innovate itself to provide solutions for urban cities.

Ratan Deep is the Global New Services Digital Business Transformation Lead at Bayer Crop Science