I would be highly skeptical of these farms, these are incapable of growing crops with actual density like tubers, beans, grains, etc… There is a reason you only see them growing leaf vegetables or mushrooms, and these end up tasteless due the lack of nutrients.
One of the problems i see with this way of farming is that it ignores that crops are connected to nature, crops do not grow in a vacuum. The soil is an ecosystem in which a huge array of microorganisms interact with each other, stuff gets decomposed by microorganisms, microorganisms leave residues, plants absorb these residues, plant leaves residues, and so on… When farmers harvest their crops, a huge portion of matter is taken away from this ecosystem (because you literally export the grain out of the soil), in order to keep building the soil organic matter farmers need to incorporate the crop residues into the soil AND add external inputs to keep building up the soil. It is a process, in which each harvest farmers have to provide the nutrients depleted by the exported harvest AND, in order to produce more, keep adding to it. But as you can see, most of the heavy lifting is done by the microorganisms that live in the soil, this is the big reason why i don’t think these vertical farms will ever be as efficient as regular farms. ( do these farms have to literally provide every single nutrient manually?, doesnt seem very efficient to me)
Also can’t convince me that providing light electronically is more efficient than literally using the sun energy lmao.
One aspect to keep in mind is extreme weather due to climate change. Indoor farming provides a controlled environment, which helps ensure a stable food supply. I think questions like efficiency are secondary in face of that. If you have a heatwave that kills all the crops then you get a famine, and that’s the risk that needs to be mitigated going forward.
That said, I don’t think you necessarily need to have vertical farms. Maybe simply creating giant greenhouses where you can keep a stable temperature on regular soil it good enough. But this is absolutely something that needs to be explored actively given where we’re headed.
I would be highly skeptical of these farms, these are incapable of growing crops with actual density like tubers, beans, grains, etc… There is a reason you only see them growing leaf vegetables or mushrooms, and these end up tasteless due the lack of nutrients.
One of the problems i see with this way of farming is that it ignores that crops are connected to nature, crops do not grow in a vacuum. The soil is an ecosystem in which a huge array of microorganisms interact with each other, stuff gets decomposed by microorganisms, microorganisms leave residues, plants absorb these residues, plant leaves residues, and so on… When farmers harvest their crops, a huge portion of matter is taken away from this ecosystem (because you literally export the grain out of the soil), in order to keep building the soil organic matter farmers need to incorporate the crop residues into the soil AND add external inputs to keep building up the soil. It is a process, in which each harvest farmers have to provide the nutrients depleted by the exported harvest AND, in order to produce more, keep adding to it. But as you can see, most of the heavy lifting is done by the microorganisms that live in the soil, this is the big reason why i don’t think these vertical farms will ever be as efficient as regular farms. ( do these farms have to literally provide every single nutrient manually?, doesnt seem very efficient to me)
Also can’t convince me that providing light electronically is more efficient than literally using the sun energy lmao.
One aspect to keep in mind is extreme weather due to climate change. Indoor farming provides a controlled environment, which helps ensure a stable food supply. I think questions like efficiency are secondary in face of that. If you have a heatwave that kills all the crops then you get a famine, and that’s the risk that needs to be mitigated going forward.
That said, I don’t think you necessarily need to have vertical farms. Maybe simply creating giant greenhouses where you can keep a stable temperature on regular soil it good enough. But this is absolutely something that needs to be explored actively given where we’re headed.