ADVANTAGES OF VERTICAL FARMING

VERTICAL FARMING

Vertical farming or Vertical farming projects is the practice of producing crops in vertically stacked from. It often encompasses controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics. Some common choices of structures to house vertical farming systems include buildings, shipping containers, underground tunnels, and abandoned mine shafts.

The modern concept of vertical farming was proposed in 1999 by Dickson Despommier, professor of Public and Environmental Health at Columbia University. Despommier and his students came up with the design of a building shaped farm that could feed 50,000 people. Although the design has not yet been built, it successfully popularized the idea of vertical farming. Current applications of vertical farmings coupled with other state-of-the-art technologies, such as specialized LED lights, have resulted in over 10 times the crop yield than would receive through traditional farming methods. There have been several different means of implementing vertical farming systems into communities such as Paignton, Israel, Singapore, Chicago, Munich, London, Japan, and Lincolnshire.

The main advantage of utilizing vertical farming technologies is the increased crop yield that comes with a smaller area of land requirement. The increased ability to cultivate a larger variety of crops at once because crops do not share the same plots of land while growing is another sought-after advantage. Additionally, crops are resistant to weather disruptions because of their placement indoors, meaningless crops lost to extreme or unexpected weather occurrences. Lastly, because of its limited land usage, vertical farming is less disruptive to the native plants and animals, leading to further conservation of the local flora and fauna.

Vertical farming technologies face economic challenges with large finance required to start-up compared to traditional farms. There is also a lot of trouble regarding Soil-based vertical farming in India. In Australia, a “hypothetical 10 level vertical farm” would cost over 850 times more per cubic meter of arable land than a traditional farm in rural Australia. Vertical farms also face large energy demands due to the use of supplementary light like LEDs. Moreover, if non-renewable energy is used to meet these energy demands, vertical farms could produce more pollution than traditional farms or greenhouses.

WHY VERTICAL FARMING?

The world's overall population is expected to increase by another 2 billion by 2040. Feeding such a large population will be the toughest part. Due to urbanization, every day we are losing lands that could be used for farming and cultivation. Studies observation suggests that the Earth has lost one- fourth of its arable lands over the last 50 years.

India is the country with the maximum population. India is evolving every day with something new. Also, industrialization is increasing dramatically due to which many arable lands are at greater risk. Vertical farming in India is the answer to all these problems. India is able to produce great yields in terms of Turmeric cultivation via Turmeric vertical farming.  

Vertical agriculture is an innovative way of conserving our agricultural practices. In India, vertical farming is mostly polyhouse-based farming. Poly-house farming is a protected way that gives higher productivity and yield of vegetables and fruits across India.

ADVANTAGE of VERTICAL FARMING:

1. §Year-round crop production

2. §Eliminates agricultural runoff

3. §Significantly reduces the use of fossil fuels (farm machines and transport of crops)

4. §Makes use of abandoned or unused properties

5. §No weather-related crop failures

6. §Offers the possibility of sustainability for urban centres

7. §Converts black and greywater to drinking water

8. §Adds energy back to the grid via methane generation