The Future Of Farming: These Vertical Farms Use 95% Less Water, No Soil, And No Pesticides

As urban populations continue to rise, innovators are looking beyond traditional farming as a way to feed everyone while having less impact on our land and water resources. Vertical farming is one solution that's been implemented around the world.
This particular vertical farm in Newark, New Jersey, is expected to grow 2 million pounds of greens per year, making it the largest indoor vertical farm in the world.



Read more at http://www.sunnyskyz.com/happy-videos/4657/The-Future-Of-Farming-These-Vertical-Farms-Use-95-Less-Water-No-Soil-And-No-Pesticides#bKekhcMtwK81LYZw.99

Nice! One of the more promising things I've heard of with this is growing algae in vertical farms that can easily be processed into biofuels.

Fascinating ...the was something called 'hydroponics' gardening back in the 70's ...that was growing veggies in shallow trays with zero soil and circulated water that the trays floated on. 
Very cool topic, TY for bringing this in here to share.

Hydroponics is quite common in Australia. with a well designed setup and green house it can also use less water due to less wastage.

veya_victaous wrote:Hydroponics is quite common in Australia. with a well designed setup and green house it can also use less water due to less wastage.

I've been wanting to try this {if I could screen the squirrels off of my front porch} as a method for growing some garden greens for my personal use >

    

                         
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SO-CALLED "innovators" and self_described "futurists" with their pie in the sky day dreams...

Dreaming up $$billion$$ corporate plans to feed the world's ever-growing population..
INSTEAD OF doing something about the main problem of exponentially exploding population growth -- and just maybe putting a cap on human populations..

HOW MANY of the world's millions of farming families will be able to find the $billions$ needed to invest ?
Like, maybe none..

Farms run by technicians and unskilled factory workers;
Millions of agricultural workers unemployed;
Farmers everywhere bankrupt and destitute.


MOST OF the world's governments can't manage 'universal health care systems' these days..
Who will pay for the eventual demise of the farmers in areas where corporatised or nationalised farms take over ???

One has has to look at the failures of state-managed farming systems in the USSR to see why such large scale centralised sytems eventually fall over..


AND THEN, there's the technical problems, besides cultural and economic factors mentioned above..

Heavy pollution : one only has to look at the long-running toxic runoff problems around agricultural areas in Israel, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe;
and the problems with polluted waters in Brazil and S.E. Asia;  
or the negative effects on local water supplies from intensive cotton growing in Australia and the USA.

And then there's always increased pest and disease problems and increased stess issues, once intensive farming practices get beyond that certain 'critical mass' point..


Whenever I see some futurists grand visions I have to wonder whether they have yet spoken to any real-world workers with on-the-ground experiences ?

In the 1960s they were predicting nuclear-powered cars, and people holidaying on the moon..
In the 1980s flying cars, hoverboards, universal healthcare and the "4 day work week" were still popping up on those futurists ideas for the 21st century...


Does anyone really want to live in the kind of worlds depicted in Bladerunner, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, RoboCop..
FORTUNATELY I won't be around to see what kind of world mankind will be carrying forward into the 22nd century.

"IF MAN is still alive !"        

@wolf
Skynet, Robots and national living wage. for the social 'issues'
Genetic engineering solves pesticides.

those world exist because the hill shepherds were allowed to have their way for too long and forced shit to stay 'sort of like it is'.
even the short work weak and work from home (digitial commuting) is only really prevented now because of older management styles that think bums on seats means something.
And of course the rich hardly want anyone but them to have spare time, cant let the massess consider how ridicously unfair it is that some people are born so so rich. Simple way to fix all those dystopian futures is end capitalism at the same time. All the Issue are caused because someone wants to profit from the technology and future. just like GMO the only real issue is that Monsanto is driven to evil by demands for shareholder profit

OR like in the Star Trek franchise...

Universal credit, where a standard of living is guaranteed..
Universal health care,
Universal education,
A certain minimum standard of living, re: food, clothing, shelter.

THEN you can start being rewarded further for the work that you choose to do / can do..

SOMETHING THAT both pure Capitalism and total Communism have both failed at.
THAT mysterious "third way" middle path that social economists and Buddhists talk about; but frustratingly still hovers just out of reach..

AND THAT the Murdochs, Farages, Kochs, Camerons, Abbott and Hockeys, Putins, ISIS and NRA, Trumps and Hansens, are all determined to prevent, in their own horrible little ways...        

which is why we need the tech-god AI, that being uneffected by our more base desires can develop a system more fairly.

also at a certian point it will just be 'keeping us' like we keep dogs or cats..... or Fish if it decides humans should have space colonies, a colony ship would sort of be like a fish tank for humans

@wolf
Meh still an improvement

Sorry, I think I'm with Wolfie on this one.
I don't like the idea of plants growing without soil. Feels a bit.....

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

SO-CALLED "innovators" and self_described "futurists" with their pie in the sky day dreams...

Dreaming up $$billion$$ corporate plans to feed the world's ever-growing population..
INSTEAD OF doing something about the main problem of exponentially exploding population growth -- and just maybe putting a cap on human populations..

HOW MANY of the world's millions of farming families will be able to find the $billions$ needed to invest ?
Like, maybe none..

Farms run by technicians and unskilled factory workers;
Millions of agricultural workers unemployed;
Farmers everywhere bankrupt and destitute.

MOST OF the world's governments can't manage 'universal health care systems' these days..
Who will pay for the eventual demise of the farmers in areas where corporatised or nationalised farms take over ???

One has has to look at the failures of state-managed farming systems in the USSR to see why such large scale centralised sytems eventually fall over..

AND THEN, there's the technical problems, besides cultural and economic factors mentioned above..

Heavy pollution : one only has to look at the long-running toxic runoff problems around agricultural areas in Israel, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe;
and the problems with polluted waters in Brazil and S.E. Asia;  
or the negative effects on local water supplies from intensive cotton growing in Australia and the USA.

And then there's always increased pest and disease problems and increased stess issues, once intensive farming practices get beyond that certain 'critical mass' point..

Whenever I see some futurists grand visions I have to wonder whether they have yet spoken to any real-world workers with on-the-ground experiences ?

In the 1960s they were predicting nuclear-powered cars, and people holidaying on the moon..
In the 1980s flying cars, hoverboards, universal healthcare and the "4 day work week" were still popping up on those futurists ideas for the 21st century...

Does anyone really want to live in the kind of worlds depicted in Bladerunner, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, RoboCop..
FORTUNATELY I won't be around to see what kind of world mankind will be carrying forward into the 22nd century.

"IF MAN is still alive !"        

How Odd ...of most likely to think this was a viable idea for our future - global warming rapid changes - future planet expansion/habitat {ie Moon/Mars}; I'd have laid odds on that you'd have been very excited and supportive about this type of farming! 
I see lots of plausible uses for this: from classrooms - to apartment dwellers - to inner city locations {ie Japan} where land value versus acreage space is a premium this is a viable process - senior complex's - handicapped living situations - our future growing season changing due to drastic climate changes - and future moon to Mars exploration!
Packing those heavy bags of top soil up into apartments complex's - front porches - keeping the soil fertilized and viable - moisture and then the weight of all that within a container; well, it's a hazard and usually a mess left for the next renter/owner because it's not worth moving. 
Water - everyone has a form of this and a method of using / reusing water - the ability to grow one's own green salad - WOW, nothing tastes as good. IMO

I SAW a news item/ documentary on TV about this idea, a few weeks ago...

I think the accompanying film clip on it, could have been from the company behind that mega-hydroponics factory farming operation depicted in the O/P..

In the film the "innovators" with the company, along with a couple of academics, were suggesting that sometime in the future, to supply food to some of the world's larger cities, they could have buildings around a mile square, and 90 to 95 stories high (!), where each floor would contain a hydroponics farm, (or maybe some intensive livestock factory farming in some places..) --  where each floor in itself would be the equivalent of one of those current existing giant-scale commercial hydroponics operations that are already operating in parts of Australia and the Middle East, that veya described earlier  !!!        

Sometimes, some single site operations can end up too big..
Even if they do solve pollution problems, there are still logistics problems, re: fertilisers, water quality, labour management, transport, food handling and storage.

And the small fact that it would cost $$billions$$ to develop something on the scale suggested by those "innovators" --  something that no farming family could ever dream of affording..

REALISTICALLY,  there are only two ways to finance such projects  --  either government funding, or alternatively, allowing some giant agribusiness corporation to control a whole city's food supply...      
 

Sometimes, some single site operations can end up too big..
Even if they do solve pollution problems, there are still logistics problems, re: fertilisers, water quality, labour management, transport, food handling and storage.

And the small fact that it would cost $$billions$$ to develop something on the scale suggested by those "innovators" -- something that no farming family could ever dream of affording..

Granted, what you state is valid and yet the offset to that could well be a return to the small quad established type of communal farming; where the vast amount of acreage isn't needed to plant & sustain a crop that can be grown to sustain the immediate family but to have some extra to sell to a family run Fresh Market. 
I remember back in 2001 when the tomato & lettuce crops had a horrible crop failure; that growing season and those regions in America that had 'some' produce were able to price hike their products out of range for the mom & pop restaurants but were being bought up by large scale food chains with the money to do that!  The price of tomatoes and lettuce went through the roof and it was hard to obtain in the grocery store but the local farmers market were getting some above fair market prices for their excellent product for a change.
Another bad growing cycle season or global warming disaster and these hydroponic growers will be getting firm contracts for their 'hot house': tomatoes/lettuce/radishes/cucumbers etc., etc., etc.

MY CONCERNS with such mega-farming operations isn't with the Hydroponics,  per se.

Hydroponic vegetable production has been gradually growing and expanding since the 1960s;
Indeed we covered hydroponic horticulture at Ag' college when I was there in the late 1970s..

When I was in my third year at Hawkesbury, there were some fellow students who did "project" work in hydroponic production, and in related areas such as tissue culture plant cloning, and aquaculture...'    


But rather with a couple of other issues I mentioned earlier :

I'm never very impressed with some of the so-called "innovators", and some of the self-described futurists adding their wild predictions into the mix, involved with some of these proposals -- often they sound more like design, marketing and arts graduates, eager to create more jobs for themselves --  rather than actual workers with any real world practical experience in the field...

SECONDLY, there's the possibility that some suggested "innovative" operations could be so large, that they could only be financed and built by either government bureaucracies, or else by giant agribusiness or food processing/manufacturing corporations -- either way, putting the mass of food production into the hands of those least suitable..        


IT IS A WELL KNOWN economic and engineering fact that the principle of "The Law of Diminishing Returns" is in action whenever the construction of dams, roads, bridges, factories, or business models (such as the kind of mega-farms discussed here..) involves getting ever bigger and bigger;  where each extra added unit of productive resource is earning a smaller amount of gross margin return, until a 'point of critical mass' is reached, where costs exceed returns, and it becomes a loss making exercise to grow anymore..

BUILDING the kind of gigantic mega-factory farm as envisioned by those "innovators" and futurists, would mean building a monolith that could easily end up costing 5 times more/unit of productive space, compared with building several smaller scale vertical farming buildings.      


WHAT I WOULD PREFER to see, would be maybe 30, 40 or 50 smaller buildings (let's say, for arguments sake, half a mile square (160 acres..) and only 9, 10 or 12 stories high..), where it could be run under a co-operative ownership model, where one farming family might own one or two floors, or in the case of some 'small (scale) farmers' several could join together, and buy or lease one floor between them..

THIS way, the farms would still be under the management/stewardship/ownership of individual, motivated and (hopefully) experienced and qualified operators -- rather than either some greedy mega-corporation or a faceless and politically-driven bureaucracy.

AND, as for several smaller buildings taking up more room than one enormous structure ?
Well --  there are plenty of mining voids, old quarry sites, former industrial areas, and disaster-ravaged zones, out around the fringes of all the world's mega-cities,  just waiting for the right kind of productive 're-use' propositions to revitalise such "wastelands"..        

eddie wrote:Sorry, I think I'm with Wolfie on this one.
I don't like the idea of plants growing without soil. Feels a bit.....

it has been mastered by marijuana growers

MARIJUANA growers do reputedly make up a significant proportion of the hydroponic equipment retailers customer base in many locales...

I LIKE WOLFIE'S IDEA!

nicko wrote:I LIKE WOLFIE'S IDEA!

Me too, in all things we're seeing a future not dictated by a powerful elite, but by smaller groups of people passionate about what they're doing. (The microbrew theory)

I'm trying to apply that in my 9-to-5 ... wish me luck

You're growing ideas in a box?

Hydroponically grown roses ...always ready for a 'WEDDING' ...

WYWolfie stated >
WHAT I WOULD PREFER to see, would be maybe 30, 40 or 50 smaller buildings (let's say, for arguments sake, half a mile square (160 acres..) and only 9, 10 or 12 stories high..), where it could be run under a co-operative ownership model, where one farming family might own one or two floors, or in the case of some 'small (scale) farmers' several could join together, and buy or lease one floor between them..

THIS way, the farms would still be under the management/stewardship/ownership of individual, motivated and (hopefully) experienced and qualified operators -- rather than either some greedy mega-corporation or a faceless and politically-driven bureaucracy.

Used to sit around listening to my grandfathers age group discuss this method of farming; he broke teams of horses and mules for farming and the army ...and as the technology of fuel based farming was replacing that method of equine use the size of the farms were growing ever increasing in acreage too.

It seemed to trouble my grandfathers generation that the movement into mass production type of farming would mean forced price for everyone's grade of grains - and god-forbid if there was a blight or horrid hail storm and the entire regions crop was wiped out then what were the local farmers too do '?'; they'd be at the mercy of the price gouging from the other regions grain prices that would be jacked up. 


It just seemed a foreboding way of too many mass production type of farm to table type of production crops would make a bad market and a real bad system for 'too many eggs in one basket if mother nature decided to do a dirty deed'; smaller farming seemed to be the best method by far for that 30's - 50's dirt farmer ideology. 

It's a way of growing plants that has been improving over the years.   All they actually need to grow is water and food, normally earth is simply a medium to get that to them.

sassy wrote:It's a way of growing plants that has been improving over the years.   All they actually need to grow is water and food, normally earth is simply a medium to get that to them.

I will say this; while I've watched the GMO modified corn {Sweet & Field} become much improved via: larger/heavier heads with fuller rows of corn sections - stronger - shorter stalks - with up to 3 - 4 full ears of corn per stalk due to these GMO hybrid seeds and the flavor hasn't really been lost {IMO} for the sweet corn types from my grandfather fields to the modern types of today's planting. 
The same cannot be said about those 'seedless watermelon' ...and why - WHY mess with something so deliciously sweet just because those seed are a little problematic?  
Try finding a 'SEEDED WATERMELON' in any of our local grocery stores now; you'll not find them unless you have a 'Whole Food Store' within driving distance or your local Farmers Market has produce ready like that coming in for sale.  I checked 5 different grocery stores prior to shopping this Friday, looking for a regular ole' seeded watermelon and THERE WASN'T ONE TO BE HAD!   

So I brought home another - fake - seedless one that was as yellow around the bottom as I could find - passed the 'THUMP' test - and that rind was 2½" thick - the amount of bitterness was another 2" next to that rind and that left me with the center cut of maybe 5 cups of watermelon for $4.99      But my hens loved all the rest that they got ...I'm still waiting for my 5 cups to start having a 'FLAVOR' - there isn't one!

I know exactly what you mean, you can get so many fruits now 'out of season' and those that never used to grow here, the they just don't have any flavour.  I absolutely adore the little flat peaches you can buy in Spain.  They have them here, but they simply don't have the tast.

I think the mega farms are necessary as it is technology humans need to develop and acquire efficiency in.
Food supply is a base need, it is something we need to master in order to build space colonies or a martian colony etc.

As i said the biggest issue is capitalism, if we move to a 'living wage' type society where most jobs are automated and employment is optional then these mega farms and factories become more viable.

I agree that letting the mega-rich control them is a bad idea.

veya_victaous wrote:I think the mega farms are necessary as it is technology humans need to develop and acquire efficiency in.
Food supply is a base need, it is something we need to master in order to build space colonies or a martian colony etc.

As i said the biggest issue is capitalism, if we move to a 'living wage' type society where most jobs are automated and employment is optional then these mega farms and factories become more viable.

I agree that letting the mega-rich control them is a bad idea.

And I see the effects of how those 'mega farming' have already left a negative foot print upon our planet;  crop production - over spraying for herbicides & fertilization & insecticides - bio hazardous run offs into our fresh ground water reserves - then there's those bio hazardous for fecal contamination from the feed lots: beef/pork/poultry and OMG ...those huge assed dairy's operations - out in western KS that milk thousands of head of dairy cows twice daily!  Just let some viral infection become problematic within those huge confined herds/flocks and the virus often can't be stopped!
Bigger has become a bio hazard problem just because of the proximity of too many in to close of a confined space = a super virus that's anti resistant to the meds we have available to treat it.
  It's very concerning the method we've taken as a society in order to feed the masses, with fewer family owned farming communities and turned to the 'MEGA PRODUCTION' method for feeding the WORLD

@4ever
that is why we have to learn how to do it better.
we're not going to magically get it perfect straight away, the problem is if we let capitalism be the driver then is profitability not quality/efficiency that is the focus.
We are already better at it down here than the USA, in large part due to more controls and more favorable towards 'big government'.