Why Vertical Farming is the Future of Food

This video is made possible by Brilliant. Start achieving your learning goals for 20% off by being one of the first 200 people to sign up at brilliant.org slash rll2. As we head further and further into the 21st century, the way in which we grow our food is going to have to greatly change in order to meet the growing demands of the planet. One reason for this is the growing population across the world. Today, there are roughly 7.7 billion people living on planet Earth. However, this is expected to grow to more than 9 billion people by the year 2050. According to the United Nations, this population growth will require that the world food supply will need to almost double within the next 30 years alone. One challenge is that the conventional way of growing crops is not really that efficient. It uses a staggering amount of fresh water, and in fact, of all the fresh water consumed across the world each year, 70% of it is dedicated just to growing crops. Further, the amount of land required to grow the food we consume each year is also insanely large. Typically, and throughout most of human history, whenever we have wanted to produce more food, we simply cut down forests or plowed more grasslands to make room for more farms. The issue here is that we are sort of running out of space available. As of right now, we have already cleared an area that is roughly the size of South America to grow the necessary amount of crops that we consume across the world. This is not to mention that the total area used to raise livestock takes up an area that is roughly the size of the entire continent of Africa. Increasing the food supply through expanding available farmland is simply just not going to be an option in the future. Much of this is due to the fact that arable land, or the land that is capable of growing crops, is quickly disappearing. This can primarily be attributed to the effects of climate change, overfarming, and soil erosion. These contributing factors over the past 40 years have led to the loss of one-third of all arable land across the world and all things considered, the earth could be in a pretty dangerous place if it cannot provide the nutrient-rich foods that we humans need to survive in the very near future. In order to cultivate more food with less space, new approaches to farming will have to be used. Vertical farming could be a solution to this problem and is already receiving some major success from early adopters and new companies across the world. Vertical farming essentially is the practice of producing food on vertically inclined surfaces instead of farming on single levels such as in a field or in a greenhouse. Typically, this will happen in vertically stacked layers that are integrated into common structures like skyscrapers, shipping containers, or even repurposed warehouses. In order to make growing crops possible under these conditions, four key components must be considered. Number one, the physical layout, number two, the lighting, number three, the growing medium, and number four, the sustainability features. First off, the primary goal of vertical farming is to maximize the space available by producing more food per square meter than your standard farm is capable of and this is why the physical layout of the farm is so important. Currently, most practicing vertical farms will either grow on normal horizontal planes that are stacked vertically or will grow plants on vertical planes stretching upwards. This allows vertical farmers to make greater use of the space they have and produce many times more the amount of crops than a typical farmer would with just a single plane available. Secondly, and probably the most important component of vertical farming, is the lighting. Most often, vertical farming is performed in areas where little if any natural light exists and a necessary light source is required in order to stimulate the growth of plants by emitting the necessary electromagnetic spectrum required for photosynthesis to occur. Incredible advances in LED light technology have enabled vertical farms to become what they are today. Although expensive, the price for LED lights used in vertical farming has come down dramatically while the efficiency has greatly increased. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, over the last decade, the price of a typical LED light has fallen to below $10 per bulb and their useful lifetime is now nearly 50,000 hours or nearly six full years running continuously. This coupled along with the low amount of heat emitted from the lights creates the perfect environment to stimulate plant growth and as a result, modern LEDs are making it possible for vertical farms to become profitable and greatly increase the variety of their crops. Adding on to this, the pink or purple color often seen in vertical farming, although does look cool, is not only there just for looks. This distinctive color is linked to the overall operational efficiency of using no more energy than is required. You may know that light emitted from the sun that is white is actually just a combination of all the different wavelengths in the visible light spectrum. But what you may not have heard is that although plants need light to grow, they actually just require a few of these wavelengths. Studies have shown that red and blue light specifically can cause a plant to grow at its best and by limiting unnecessary light spectrums, further energy efficiency can be achieved. The next important component is what is known as the growing medium. While all vertical farms come in different shapes and sizes, each farm will typically use one of three soil-free systems for delivering nutrients to plants in order for them to grow. The first of which is known as hydroponics. Hydroponics, which is actually the most common growing medium in all of vertical farming, works by submerging the plant's roots into a nutrient-rich water solution that can be circulated and monitored for the correct composition throughout the growth of the plant. This method requires no soil whatsoever and allows for an incredible amount of water conservation as the water, other than what is actually being used by the plant, can be reused over and over again. Additionally, this method is easy to scale as additional rows of crops can be added along with a supporting infrastructure to disperse the nutrient-rich water to the overall vertical farming system. The next method, aeroponics, uses a very unique method of farming that involves no soil, sunlight, or even direct water. This method was first pioneered by NASA in order to grow crops in space and it involves frequently spraying crops with a nutrient-based mist. Although still somewhat rare to find in the vertical farming world, this method can reduce water usage by as much as 90% and it has been proven that plants using this method may intake more minerals and vitamins making them even healthier to consume. And finally, the last growing method is what is known as aquaponics. Aquaponic farming takes the basic hydroponic system one step further and combines both plants and fish together in the same ecosystem. In this system, fish will be grown in indoor ponds that then produce nutrient-rich waste. This waste can then be fed to the plants which in turn filter and purify this wastewater before it is finally recycled back to where it all started. This cycle happens over and over again creating a highly productive and balanced ecosystem. However, it is not often used due to the additional complexity. Using systems like these, indoor vertical farming can truly become a sustainable system that can greatly increase the amount of food available for the entire planet. Although these farms may incur higher energy costs due to the large amount of artificial lighting required, this can easily be offset through the incorporation of sustainable features like rainwater tanks, wind turbines, and other clean energy alternatives. And this is not to mention the vastly increased yields and other efficiencies provided by vertical farms. While a standard open field farm that is growing, let's say lettuce for example, will only yield 3.9 kilograms for every square meter of land used, it will also consume 1,000 liters of water throughout the growing season. And to make matters worse, the crops often growing on these traditional farms generally have to travel somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 miles before it arrives at a grocery store or a restaurant near you. Contrary to this, growing lettuce on a vertical farm will yield as much as 120 kilograms per square meter of land. Use 5 liters of water or less and often will be much closer to the final destination, meaning less CO2 emissions as vertical farms can literally be placed anywhere independent of climate conditions and grow crops year-round. Vertical farms are already sprouting up all over the world and major companies and investors are getting involved with some amazing results. Arrow Farms, a company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, built the world's largest indoor vertical farm when they converted a 70,000 square foot steel mill into this ultra-futuristic farm. Here, they harvest up to 2 million pounds of nutritious greens each year and sell them under their Dream Greens label in stores across the northeast United States. Additionally, they are also supplying airlines such as Singapore Airlines with leafy greens for their in-flight meals. And this is merely just one example of many companies getting involved at the onset of this new industry. With all this money flowing into the sector and the incredible advances that will be made in the years to come, it's hard not to think that vertical farming could be a major source of the planet's food in the very near future. But in order to come up with better and new ways to provide food for all of humanity, it will take innovative thinking and a firm understanding of the science behind it. As much as videos like this one explain interesting new technologies, the best way to gain more knowledge on a topic for yourself is to fully understand the science behind it. 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