Let’s nibble a bit on the expression above.
A factory: a fully controlled, well-managed, closed unit.
A place, where plants are produced.
Not grown, but produced according to a production plan. Is this only one further step along the road or is this something revolutionary?
THE CHALLENGE
According to the UN website the world population will reach 9.8 billion by 2050.
It is clear enough that the current agricultural systems and practices may not be capable of feeding everyone on Earth.
What kind of new methods can save us?
What aspects can be taken into consideration?
Which technologies can we rely on?
It is obvious that cultivar selection is essential, but what else?
One very important aspect is the size of area involved in agricultural activities.
It is logical that if we can extend the size of area under cultivaton by involving new non-agricultural areas that would be a big step forward.
Another very important aspect is weather/climate.
It is also logical that if we can reduce the impact of weather/climate to a close-to-zero level that would be another huge step forward.
A POTENTIAL SOLUTION
These two issues bring us to the new reality of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA).
According to the most widely accepted terminology CEA includes indoor agriculture, greenhouse production, and urban agriculture.
I am interested mainly in the indoor agriculture programs, because from energy point of view I find this topic really interesting.
How to imagine an indoor plant factory these days?
The typical site is an abandoned warehouse in industrial neighbourhoods somewhere in the U.S.
Inside the old building leading-edge technology prevails, in the growing zones sophisticated environmental systems monitor and regulate light energy, root temperature, air temperature, humidity, air flow, water, nutrients, carbon dioxide levels and crop health.
The farm is closed to sunshine, the plant-specific lighting is pre-programmed and the crop is grown hydroponically, the plant roots are bathed in nutrient-rich water. The unused nutrients are recycled, waste heat is recovered and everything is under strict control.
The view is like a NASA experiment. Thousands of young leafy greens, microgreens grow vigorously under a glow of pink-purple-blue lights.
Despite the surreal appearence it is a real, day-to-day business for some 40 plus vertical farms in the United States.
What are the main points of the value proposition of such a farm?
Let’s see one of the latest examples, the company called ’80 Acres Farms’ from Ohio, U.S.
They claim they use 100% renewable energy, use 97% less water than outdoor farming, the yield is 300 times the traditional outdoor farming output.
They produce 200,000 pounds of leafy greens, vine crops, herbs and microgreens annually in a 12,000-square-foot warehouse, an amount that would require 80 acres of farmland (hence the company’s name).
Th ecompany ’80 Acres Farms’ does not need varieties bred for disease resistance or plants genetically modified to handle the stresses of the field. The operation is not vulnerable to the effects of climate change, it allows speedy, year-round crop cycles (15 or more crops a year).
The greens produced by them are completely pesticide free, the company provides everthing fresh– next day delivery after harvest, because they deliver only within a 50 miles radius, thus eliminating thousands of food miles and decreasing food waste.
A REAL VALUE DRIVER
One of the most important value generators at the plant is the energy-efficient and programmable LED lighting.
At the heart of the lighting system lies the optimal, plant specific light spectrum for plants to thrive.
Since plants emerged on Earth, they have relied on the light of the sun to feed and grow through the process of photosynthesis.
“What is sunlight from a plant’s perspective?” Mike Zelkind, chief executive of 80 Acres Farms asks. “It’s a bunch of photons.”
Yes, that is right. What more, every single type of plant gets the ’same’ sunshine.
But are we sure that the same mix of wavelenghts is the optimal one for every kind of plant?
Why should it be?
“The spectrum from sunlight isn’t necessarily the best or most desirable for plants,” says Erik Runkle, a plant scientist at Michigan State University. “I think we can produce a better plant” with LED lights, he says. “The question becomes: Can you do it in a way that is cost-effective considering the cost of plants indoors?”
Diode lights, which work by passing a current between semiconductors, have come a long way since they showed up in calculator displays in the 1970s. Compared with other forms of electrical illumination, light-emitting diodes use less energy, give off little heat (at the front) and can be fine-tuned to optimize plant growth.
In indoor agricultural applications, LED light-based ’customized light recipes’ are used to control how plants grow, when they flower, how they taste and even their levels of vitamins and antioxidants.
At ’80 Acres Farms’ different light recipes are used to grow, for example, two types of basil from the same plant: sweeter ones for the grocery store and more piquant versions for chefs (!).
The visible spectrum of light is measured in wavelengths, from violet-blue light through green to red at the other end. For decades, scientists have known that photosynthesis is optimized within the red band, but plants also need blue lightwaves to prevent stretching and enhance leaf color. A barely visible range beyond red, known as far red, promotes larger leaves, branching and flowering.
With advances in LED technology, light recipes — determining the number of hours illuminated, the intensity of photons directed at plants and the mix of colors — can be finely tuned to each crop and even to each stage in a crop’s life.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Light manufacturers and universities are actively involved in research and development finding new ways toward better yields.
“We have a completely new era of research,” says Leo Marcelis, a horticulture professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Tweaking light recipes has allowed researchers to manipulate crops in a way never seen before. In the lab, chrysanthemums have been forced into bloom without the traditional practice of curtailing their daily exposure to daylight. This will allow growers to produce bigger plants in flower.
“It’s to do with playing around with the blue light at the right moment of the day,” Marcelis says. “Its internal clock is affected differently, so it doesn’t completely recognize it’s still day. There are so many amazing responses of the plant to the light.”
Lettuce, for example, likes as much as 18 hours of light per day, but basil prefers brighter light for 15 hours, says Celine Nicole, a researcher for Signify, formerly Philips Lighting. “Every plant has its own preference,” says Nicole, who conducts research at the company’s high-tech campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands. She has already tested 600 types of lettuce.
A CURE-ALL?
Indoor farming has its critics, who see it is unlikely to fulfill promises of feeding a growing population en masse, because most staples, such as corn, wheat and rice, cannot be grown viably indoors. Industrial-scale field agriculture will maintain a significant share of global production due to the sheer food volume necessity.
Vertical farming shouldn’t be considered as the only way to solve the world’s food problems, but it is a viable climate-independent way of producing high-quality and high-value greens year-round, it is a supplementing and complementing production system.
Peter Konjoian (president of Konjoian’s Floriculture Education Services in Andover, Mass.) brings in another perspective too.
He finds one of the most jaw-dropping objectives of NASA that we need to have food growing on the surface of Mars by 2029 when the first astronauts are scheduled to arrive there. That means that before they arrive, food needs to be there, growing by robotic crop production.
Based on previous experiences, when technology from the space program was trickling down to everyday life, like lightweight and strong composite metals, high-tech fabrics, memory foam and so on, NASA’s involvement will produce a lot of good for us this time too.
BOTTOM LINE
Indoor farming is not science fiction any more, the new technology is at our disposal.
It is high-tech, it uses valuable components and works under a precise management system, where everything is under control to the tiniest.
Indoor farming produces leafy greens, microgreens, vine crops and herbs by using typically renewable energy, significantly less water than outdoor farming, without any need for special breeds.
The yield is much higher than in the case of outdoor farming, because the operation allows year-round crop cycles (15-22 crops a year) and the system is vertical.
Indoor farming is not vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
It is not the ultimate solution, it won’t solve the problem to feed 9.8 billion people in 2050.
It is however a very promising complementing solution, which can decrease food miles and food waste.
For quite a large segment in the Western world high-quality, pesticide-free food is becoming an ever-growing demand. This increase in demand and the continuous development in technology will drive the cost down.
And we have a bonus here.
The Mars expedition is a high priority NASA mission. NASA’s R&D activities will trickle down to our everyday life and will help to expand indoor agriculture activities around the globe (I mean the Earth J).
How do you feel about this?
/Based on articles/papers/talks/website of:
Peter Konjoian, Konjoian’s Floriculture Education Services, Andover, Mass.
Adrian Higgins, Washington Post
Logan Ashcraft, San Francisco
80 Acres Farms
Leave a Reply