'Vertical Farming' the Future of our farming

With the global population set to exceed 10 billion people by 2050, the challenge of providing enough food for everyone in a sustainable, efficient and cost-effective way is rising insignificance. Shedding the restrictions of seasonal weather patterns, overcoming transportation challenges and significantly enhancing yields, the growing trend of “Vertical farming” could be the solution to future food production.

This potential solution is quite literally growing trend. A concept that sees the sprawling crop farms of old condensed into much smaller factory-like sites where conditions can be optimized and yields significantly increased. Facilities like Aero-Farms in New Jersey or InFarm in Berlin, AgriCool in France, CropOne in Dubai are some of the top-notch vertical farming facilities which produce crop’s in an enclosed environment, where almost everything from the lighting and ambient temperature to soil conditions and nutrients are carefully controlled. This facility uses extensive vertical racking to optimize space, as compared to a conventional crop farm enabling it to be located on a far smaller site and much closer to an established urban area Such a location reduces the extent of haulage or “food miles” required to transport produce to consumers, cutting CO₂ emissions.

Geography aside, the creation of controlled conditions delivers many benefits. Firstly, the process of crop production is insulated from seasonal weather patterns that are highly susceptible to disruption as a result of our changing climate. In a vertical farm, lighting, water and temperature can all be optimized to remove climatic risks and enhance production rates. That’s why despite being a new industry, due to new possibilities with data analysis, yield improvements are happening quickly.

Vertical farms have a multitude of sensors measuring many parameters. From, temperature, to nutrient levels. The plants are analyzed with cameras and sensors which monitor plant health in real-time. Because plant factories control the environment so effectively, it's considerably easier to actively run experiments and interpret the data. Maximizing yield by the fine-tuning of variables such as CO₂ and humidity levels. Not only that but due to having considerably more harvests per year, they have a lot more opportunities to experiment, collect data and learn. This allows for a learning rate that is a number of magnitudes higher than other growing methods. As a result, vertical farms are hiring data engineers and sensor specialists as a significant percentage of their workforce. Artificial Intelligence already plays a key role in many vertical farm operations. Despite this, it's still at an early stage. As sensors continue to get cheaper and more capable, the opportunities for vertical farms increases considerably.

As a result of this, sites like MIRAI’s facility near Tokyo, the world's largest city, are able to generate yields 50 to 100 times greater than that of a traditional crop farm. The use of a controlled environment also eliminates the losses due to birds and insects that must be factored on conventional farms, cutting the need for harmful pesticides to be used and improving the quality of produce.

Vertical farms also optimize the level of nutrients that crops receive, solving the challenge of finding a sufficient extent of suitable farming land in close proximity to a major urban area. In many instances, the soil is removed altogether, and crops are grown on membranes on membranes where they are sprayed with nutrient-rich solutions. Vertical farms can also increase the yield of any given plant beyond what is seen in hydroponic greenhouses. And it's not just because of their additional growing layers. That’s because they have a much greater temperature, atmospheric and light control than greenhouses. This allows for superior growing conditions and waste elimination. Plants only absorb certain wavelengths of light. Using LED grow lights allows plant factories to use specific light recipes tailored to each plant, enhancing energy efficiency.

While vertical farms, atmosphere, nutrient and light control already far surpass current growing methods. There are many opportunities to increase it further. Plant growth is complex and affected by many parameters. There is still a considerable amount of work to be undertaken to understand the optimal conditions for plants. Outdoor plants use changes in sunlight to determine when to grow and flower. Normally this is dictated by the environment but LEDs can emit different recipes of light at different growth phases of the plant. These light recipes can alter many of their characteristics. They can be used together to increase the flowering portion, reduce the root growing phase and even control how the plant tastes. This allows plant factories to increase the edible mass percentage significantly.

Even after considering the advantages of Vertical farming, a question arises, why vertical farming is not used everywhere?  The reason is, vertical farms do have their limitations and critics have pointed out two main concerns in which the first one is the level of energy required to maintain such refined environments & second is  number of plants which are poorly suited to vertical farms due to low edible mass percentage, as being ill-suited to hydroponics, or being a tall crop.

Talking about the first fundamental barrier to be able to grow every crop type, which is electricity. Leafy greens don't require much light to grow as they are made of around 95% water and their edible mass makes up most of the crop. Compare that to rice crop which provides the most calories worldwide, supplying 19% of global human calories. It is just 15% water and has a much lower edible mass percentage. Unfortunately growing rice using artificial lighting would require about 30 times more energy than cabbage. Rice grown in a vertical farm using current technology would produce extremely expensive rice and have a significant energy demand. Energy is the major constraint for plant factories and the overwhelming factor that dictates what plants can be grown.

While these concerns are valid, several vertical farms are powered by renewable technologies and recycle many of their resources. The use of energy-efficient LED lighting reduces power consumption, while the blue and red shades of light are even more economical to run. The efficient LED's run colder, not only does this save electricity but it allows them to be placed closer to the plant without risking heat damage. This allows plant factories to fit more levels into a fixed building height, increasing footprint yield. Closer positioning increases light penetration into the canopy allowing plants to be grown closer together and increasing absolute yield. It also reduces light bleed and increases light absorption efficiency, reducing energy requirements. Greater use of reflective bay materials, deeper penetrating green wavelength light, and mid-level bay lighting can further reduce the total energy requirements.  The optimized crop production process also allows vertical farmers to reduce the amount of water used, and many vertical farms are served by rainwater harvesting systems. Some even collect and recycle the water that condenses within the controlled environment itself. This closed-cycle approach has the added benefit of preventing nutrients and fertilizers from damaging land or being washed in rivers and streams.

In the last few years LED lights have improved considerably. Special units are being developed specifically for indoor growing and their efficiency is anticipated to improve by 50% in the next decade. It's not just efficiency though. LEDs are increasingly capable of delivering a broader spectrum of light, allowing for greater control and yields & Reducing the cost of electricity which will enable vertical farms to grow a broader range of products.

Even after we reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of electricity use, the concern still remains of unsuited plants growth, our second concern regarding vertical farming. Since current commercial outdoor crops have no need to consider these parameters they breed plant varieties that thrive outdoors and are often incompatible with vertical farms. 

Plant Factories have different priorities and require different seed types as a result. There are many dwarf varieties of existing crops that could be utilized. If they can match existing crop quality with a seed optimized for short height, hydroponics and high edible mass percentage, then the energy requirement for replacing existing crops could shrink significantly. Additionally, seeds can be bred for faster harvest cycles, not a requirement for most current crops. Many current crops sacrifice breeding for peak yield so as to breed for vital resistances. This isn't necessary for vertical farms because of their sealed conditions. Unlike greenhouses, they don't need to vent and are run like a clean room environment. These yield improvements alone can significantly reduce the energy gap for future crop types, but it's not the only improvement available. This area has a huge potential for improvement, especially for plant factories that utilize genetically engineered seeds. Gene editing techniques are getting much cheaper and easier to implement. This has a lot of potential for both indoor and outdoor farming in the future.

Although the cost and availability of land for vertical farms in urban areas can prove challenging, many facilities are finding home in re-purposed shipping containers, former factories, and disused warehouses. To be economically viable in the foreseeable future, plants grown in vertical farms ideally need the following characteristics: high edible mass percentage, low plant height, fast-growing cycles, suited to hydroponic growing short shelf life.  If vertical farming can realize the extent of these improvements, their future energy demand can be dramatically lower and will be able to supply much cheaper products than we see today. But can the energy requirement get low enough to have a large global impact? And if it can, how soon can it happen? Let's find out.