If you made it this far and haven't dismissed the idea you probably have more questions than answers. Some of the technical aspects of vertical farming are, fortunately enough, not too far from the technical aspects of indoor gardening which anyone can do at home (some with more success than others, granted). The first question I had when initially evaluating the idea of vertical farming the growing world's food supply was how much more food can we actually grow using this format? The answer is a lot more.In fact, an Japanese indoor farm has recorded growing inefficiencies as high as 100 times greater than traditional methods. There are some key aspects to this markedly high efficiency, but the big bullet-points are that the method entrepreneur Shigeharu Shimamura has developed have maximized water usage by virtually eliminating loss, delivering light as efficiently as possible using electric light sources, and by controlling the environment to a surgically-clean degree thereby eliminating pollutants and reducing the presence of free radicals in the air. This mode of agriculture can be extremely robust, being able to withstand droughts and otherwise unfavorable conditions. A good case study would be California, which as we know is in the midst of a historic drought which has in-turn effected the yield-capacity of its agricultural land.
So the risk is very much there for our agriculture to be undermined by the most powerful force on earth; that being the weather, which we still can't manage to put a leash on, or even a loud enough bell. So when we approach the carrying capacity of our only planet, which is something we may currently be crossing, we should eliminate as much risk to our crop yields as possible.
I love your title and these are some great numbers to share. I enjoyed scouting your hyperlinks on the vertical gardening work in Japan. Your first blog post convinced me of the need to produce food in an efficient way. This post encourages me to try given the success you outline.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be easier reading if you created smaller paragraphs more to the point. Your first paragraph ambles a bit before coming to the question of how much more food could be grown using vertical farming.
In the end, I am left wondering how I can apply vertical gardening to my garden? I do not have a controlled indoor environment and I would love to hear some suggestions or tricks of the trade.
I love your topic< I never really heard of vertical farming before but after reading your first two post I am very interested in the idea of vertical farming. I found it interesting that with how much more food it can make and that it is so efficient why isn’t this method more widely used or know. Is it too expensive to do this on a big scale? Will the use of more vertical farming reduce the price of food? If so how much? With the growing population I think vertical farming seems like the best way to fix food problems.
ReplyDeleteThe techniques used by Shimamura seem to truly show a great advantage to vertical farming. The low water usage is a bonus to the ability that vertical farms have to utilize space. It makes me wonder if there have been studies to find ways to utilize light better as well.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how well a vertical farm would do in a polluted city without air cleaned to a “surgically - cleaned degree”. My assumption is that large cities would benefit most from vertical farms, so that would be an issue that might need to be worked out.
I would have to mildly disagree with the link referring to the carrying capacity of our planet. It states 2 to 40 billion. We have surpassed 2 billion by threefold and 40 billion seems far to much unless we completely change how we live, and very soon.