Submitted by Josh12345_ t3_11dthpq in Futurology
What does the near future have in store for vertical farming?
Can vertical farming help reduce the need for large tracts of agricultural land or help urban centers become food independent?
What are your thoughts and feelings on this topic?
>A bag of flour and liter of cooking oil made in a bioreactor will represent a much more significant revolution than tomatoes and berries grown in vertical farms.
I came here to say this.
Vertical farms work great for mid-sized crops (strawberries or tomatoes), but not small (like wheat/corn) or large (like almond trees or apple trees). But bioreactors are going to be in serious play using bacteria to grow food in vats (yum, who doesn't want vat flour and vat oil? lol we'll get used to it)
The need for more food produced in smaller areas, and the need to better control the environment for that food will likely necessitate the rise in vertical farming.
I lack knowledge on this topic. My source is from Lydia and Claude Bourguignon, french "expert" on soil. They did an interview on it, however i just checked and stubled on articles critizing part of their unscientific method, so what i wrote may be wrong.
I may go outside their analysis.
I would be worried about food quality and its nutriments. Bourguignon's couple explained that vertical farming use a standardised soil for economical reason. So there won't be any terroir : soil's unique attribute that give a certain taste, nutriment to the vegetable. They can't put every soil components (too expensive) hence the lack of personality (taste) and nutriments.
So whatever is its location, it will have the same taste. A vegetable depend of the soil and climate to nuture its taste and nutriments.
As for animal, dunno but i think the lack of activities will hinder their health like us (=medications that will end up in your meal or soil). And their muscle fiber will be weak. They need exercises, sun and a healthy diet.
Futhermore, i wonder how much energy you will need for the soil, the light...we walk on it, the sun is warm, it is free, it's a lively gut that feed generations of various animals and plants. The apex of life.
So, let's imagine what could happen with a standardised meal...That's not a great futur.
We really need to stop industrial food, reduce our population and improve soil's quality by removing bad agricultural practice that spell doom to humanity survival and life.
Fantastic answer! I whole heatedly agree! It's so frustrating seeing the media making people scramble for every new high tech solution, when we simply need to do what we are doing now, but better and with more care! Current agricultural practices are destroying top soil at a staggering rate, and should be sorted out first before we change tactics!
As to the role of such vertical farms, business will surely go in that direction, as it could potentially produce "food" cheaper, and the PR agencies are doing a great job of making it seem healthy. In reality though it will be the new junk food: the cheapest option for some consumers, but lacking in balanced nutrition and producing a whole new set of associated illnesses.
Plants grown in such sterile conditions will be totally devoid of any natural biological ecosystem, so consumers will lack the naturally ingested bacteria and microbes that we are beginning to realise are so important to us (for our gut biome and immune system). Similarly the plants themselves have no need to produce their own protective chemicals to prevent disease and fend off predators, so they will lack these greatly beneficial antioxidants and chemicals that we know can help prevent disease and cancer in us.
(It's a very small step away from just taking a food pill really as you may as well just consume the nutrient solutions that are used with such farms.)
Great for mid-sized crops (raspberries, tomatoes, etc.)
Terrible for very small crops (wheat, corn) or very large crops (almond trees)
So utility, but limited utility
Vertical farming itself is very practical because it avoids land erosion, nutrient depletion of soils and limits harm to nature. Besides that vertical farming can increase yield, nutrient density and taste through a controled environment (I.e. nutrients, light, etc.). It also needs no pesticides because of that controlled environment. Vertical farms also require about ⅓ of the water needed for conventional farming and a lot less land.
It has already been tested on multiple different vegetables, beans (soy beans for example) and leafy greens and it works for all of them. Some require different versions of vertical farming.
The major problem with vertical farming is it's massive energy consumption and expensive construction and maintance. Everything has to work perfectly for it to have optimal results.
The fun part of vertical farming is, that we can also try ourself with GMO in a safe environment, without worrying that the new strand will spread.
Certain food, especially potatoes will be hard to farm in large quantities inside an urban environments and we will still need farm land for it. Just less.
We also need to get away from eating meat as one the largest uses of farmland is for animal feed production.
People want food for immediate pleasures, not just to meet organism sustainment needs through nutrients. The financials of a vertical farms set up in an existing underutilized skyscraper is not comparable to the financials of a purpose-built facility above ground or underground. But speaking only of underutilized skyscrapers, when 'lack of profitability' is discussed, I am unclear what comparisons are accounted for.
Input costs for conventional farms include drying legumes for a regulated market, regulate crop stress responses, disease resistance, soil amendments and erosion, irrigation infrastructure cost-shares and grants to incentivize producers to undertake sustainable practices, various types of insurance and labour costs. Inflation also does not affect producers equally. Fresh produce growers do not benefit from commodity price increases in the same way when faced with international subsidized competitors.
While not every crop is best for vertical farm growing conditions, for the reasons above when reviewed on a ten-year basis certain types of crops are profitable in underutilized skyscrapers due to controls for magnitude of variability.
mhornberger t1_jaasfec wrote
To a point. At the moment it only works economically for some crops. Greens mainly, though some are expanding to cucumbers, berries, tomatoes, and a bit else. But fruits and vegetables don't represent the bulk of the acreage we use, unfortunately.
V. farms will have a role, I think. But the real land/water savings will come from cultured meat and the rest of cellular agriculture. Plus companies like Solar Foods and others using hydrogenotrophs to make analogues of flour and plant oils, with no need of arable land. A bag of flour and liter of cooking oil made in a bioreactor will represent a much more significant revolution than tomatoes and berries grown in vertical farms.