Hard Reset Podcast: Vertical farms

Hard Reset Podcast: Vertical farms | Episode #1

Рет қаралды 12,756

11 ай бұрын

Join Nick Tucker + our Freethink team for the first ever Hard Reset Podcast episode on vertical farming! We’re diving deeper on the technology and ideas featured in our original vertical farming video episode, sharing bonus info that never made it to the final cut, and responding to some of the most popular (and meanest) comments.
Listen on Spotify ► open.spotify.com/show/1vmm4a8...
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Watch the original episode on vertical farming ► • Vertical farms could t...
What's the future of vertical farming? Can it become economically competitive with conventional farming? And, perhaps most importantly, does vertically farmed produce actually taste good? These are just a handful of the questions explored in this episode of the Hard Reset podcast.
Vertical farming involves growing crops in stacked layers in controlled indoor environments. While it offers solutions for urban agriculture, sustainability, and food security, it faces challenges including high setup costs and limitations on growing staple crops.
Despite this, its future looks promising, with potential for innovation in technology, potential widespread adoption from commercial entities to homes, and a role in reducing agriculture's carbon footprint.
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Read more of our stories on farming:
Farmers can fight invasive insects with AI and a robotic arm
►www.freethink.com/robots-ai/s...
3 ways autonomous farming is driving a new era of agriculture
►www.freethink.com/hard-tech/a...
Agricultural photosynthesis lets us grow plants in total darkness
►www.freethink.com/science/art...
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Watch our original series:
► Hard Reset: • Hard Reset by Freethink
► Just Might Work: • Just Might Work by Fre...
► Challengers: • Challengers by Freethink
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About Freethink
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Пікірлер: 53

@rorymorford4722 11 ай бұрын

As a kid I dreamed of replacing endless fields with agri-towers and natural environments. So surprised that there’s use-cases for this technology already.

@latriciacagle4873 11 ай бұрын

My great grandparents were farmers in northern Texas during the dust bowl days. My family since then has had home gardens and so did I until two years ago. Between the extreme heat and drought conditions, plus I no longer have a yard, I’m trying to transition to indoor/outdoor hydroponics. Since I’m in a small condo I’ve had to change what I grow. I’m experimenting with dwarf and parthenocarpic varieties. The outdoor efforts are not as successful due to the extreme heat but my citrus trees are hanging in there. I’m having more success indoors with lettuce, dwarf tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and alfalfa sprouts. I’ve converted a walk in closet into an indoor “greenhouse” and some things are growing on the kitchen counter. I’m using very little water. I’m probably spending a bit more on electricity with LED grow lights and air/water circulation. My costs on nutrients is about the same but I’m using nutrients specific to hydroponics. I support more indoor hydroponics on a small and large scale integrated with renewable energy. I’ve seen more conventional farming integrated with overhead solar panels and using low water irrigation methods that look promising. We need to adapt and be willing to adopt more efficient and sustainable methods of food production. I think my great grandparents would agree.

@mikedelima1219 11 ай бұрын

Great talk! Pleas, keep doing this documentaries and podcasts, they are super cool and educative. I think the future is now so a hard reset is necessary in our society.

@freethink 11 ай бұрын

That's the plan! Glad you enjoyed it.

@evanli421 11 ай бұрын

I totally want a vertical farming plant close to my home (maybe not right next to, depends on how noisy it is). It's gonna be great buying salads that are harvested in the same day i purchase them. About the power part, i think it's reasonable to own a solar farm in the middle of the desert to offset the power used in the farm, while covering the roof and south walls of the factory with solar cells of course.

@evanli421 11 ай бұрын

also if the water use in a farm is desalinized, vertical farming would be better than traditional in power consumption (if the vertical farms are really 99% water efficient). desalination is crazy power hungry, way more then the LEDs for vertical farming

@busterofcoviddeniers 11 ай бұрын

Wouldn’t it harm the dessert ecosystem?

@SlyPigoftheMountains 11 ай бұрын

@@busterofcoviddeniersdeserts barely have an ecosystem. I doubt they serve any significant purpose at a global scale

@Tyrone-Ward 11 ай бұрын

@@evanli421huh? Just use fresh water

@roxane1237 7 ай бұрын

You can build one for your home. Look up Simple Greens Hydroponics. He has an amazing setup. I bought some LED lamps and will be starting to build one for myself. Last year I experimented with hydroponics on my balcony with the kratky method which is very cheap and basic. However my balcony was too hot starting June so I all my greens started to bolt. It was pretty cool to do though. You can also check the channel Keep on growin if you wanna try Kratky hydroponics in a very cheap manner (if you have a balcony or garden you can skip the whole LED light part which is the most expensive).

@CitiesForTheFuture2030 11 ай бұрын

We need to bring farming as close to consumers as possible to avoid transport, warehousing, storage refrigeration, warehousing etc etc. This could include green roofs, rooftop farms, community gardens etc. Some community grocery stores are growing produce on the store roof. Not all agri crops can be grown in cities so rural farms still important. In many countries most farm produce is exported anyway. Vertical farms can be energy intensive, awa tech-dependent. In many countries its preferable to grow crops that don't require less energy (from renewables) and be less tech-dependent (jobs more important in many countries). Some crops can grow in shade or even in the dark, so more produce can be grown per area of land, for example - in the basement (crops that don't need sunlight, e.g. mushrooms) - inside (crops that prefer the shade) - on the roof (crops that like lots of sunshine) Animal welfare should be top priority if using livestock as part of the process.

@kvm1992 11 ай бұрын

Only if you living off grid you can farm nearest you. Rooftop farming in cities is not suitable for farming because it's unsanitary to feed a majority of people in such a way but rooftops should only consist of gardens full of ornamental plants. Food for cities must be farmed on industrial scale not personal scale.

@CitiesForTheFuture2030 11 ай бұрын

@@kvm1992 That is why I said we still need rural farming. But we still need to bring as much farming into urban areas as we can. The current system is not working - high emissions & waste (up to 40%) & pollution & energy expenditure and ultimately the high cost of food. This has a disproportionate impact on low income households, women & children. There are other factors too of course - it's a complex issue. We need to be less reliant on ^privatized" food production linked to massive profits for large food production companies etc, food insecurity for many and a dying planet.

@stonecoldcarebear 10 ай бұрын

I'd love to see a follow-up on Compton

@danishpinay 10 ай бұрын

I really think we should also think of this in the future, so we can still have food to eat regardless of climate change.

@CitiesForTheFuture2030 11 ай бұрын

Um, where are the lady farmers?

@thomasbermea347 11 ай бұрын

One of my main concerns isn't another dust bowl, it's a combination of climate change and extreme weather events on the one hand, and pests/pathogens becoming super immune to sprays and stuff on the other hand. And another lesser concern is less likely, but still scary: what if an adversary nation genetically engineered agricultural pathogens to attack the US food supply? These are things we need to be thinking about and coming up with solutions for now, and I think vertical farming and permaculture are amazing and have tremendous potential

@bobsinhav 11 ай бұрын

I want these vertical farms on nuclear powered naval vessels!

@Shillbilly 11 ай бұрын

Let's go day 1

@williambeswick2411 11 ай бұрын

I think there are ways to grow most trees in pots.

@irwingspereira3861 11 ай бұрын

I'm agree, Mc Donald's ketchup best ever hahaha

@catman4859 10 ай бұрын

One thing people dont think much about vertical farming is that vertical farms are trying to grow foods that have been genetically modified for decades to grow on open fields, not in vertical farms. So, if we start genetically modifying foods specifically for vertical farms(Shorter wheats, rice etc) then the productivity of vertical farms would skyrocket.

@vivaankhabya 11 ай бұрын

Please do a follow-up!

@freethink 11 ай бұрын

Keep an eye on our channel 👀

@Idahomeable 11 ай бұрын

FYI, tried to find it on Apple Podcasts, but didn’t, although it looks like there’s a half dozen pods by that name already.

@freethink 11 ай бұрын

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hard-reset-podcast/id1697504258

@bastroman4845 11 ай бұрын

I desire these means of production, the idea of owning a food producing fully automated fab in the future with very limited inputs is power. You control the food and water you have the power. Upfront costs early will be staggering but material sciences thanks to AI have costs plummeting across the tech industry, I think the best pitch is to guesstimate how long each iteration will take to pay for itself

@charazord1 10 ай бұрын

We need to start with the energy sector for a hard reset before you can get the rest of the life carbon footprint because of the fact that the energy sector would be the hardest part of the carbon footprint to retrofit a green solution for. But if you can get the "worst 1-10%" of the energy producers out of the system today, then scalings up all of the better option is not impossible to get to.

@livingladolcevita7318 11 ай бұрын

Although I think this is a good idea I am going to play Devils advocate and put some issues that might occur. Firstly I notice mostly salad crops seem to be used as an example, growing other crops may be a challenge. Growing in soil allows plants to take up trace elements naturally, growing in the apparent sterile conditions will give you good and clean looking plants but may be nutritionally low, yes you can add these to the water but you then have to rely on some sort of chemical input.

@jensgeysen9224 11 ай бұрын

How the plants are going to feel??? By farming vertically, a huge amount of agricultural area will disappear because there is more yield per hectare. As a result, there is more room for nature such as forests. Many plants feel best in forests! This is due to the rich structure of fungi in the soil, different layers in height,...

@fakename519 26 күн бұрын

please follow up it is so interesting I will be in the field

@thekinarbo 11 ай бұрын

The biggest atmospheric water generators can produce 1500 gallons a day.

@cherylm2C6671 11 ай бұрын

Although the per-entity costs of doing business can be distributed, the vertical farm market model may allow farmers market participants to remain a community resource against natural emergencies and also engage in profitable technical skillsets. Vulnerabilities, however, include power costs, programming fault, parts wear, behavior, and costs of debt from acquiring the tool. There are parallels to conditions which enabled the Irish and Indian famines, and both South and North Korea come to mind. Will vertical farm 'districts' lead to corn laws type price fixing? Will it enable a living wage or fix subsistence wages for participants? Jay, on Plasma Channel, mentioned a forest that sold coffee, and the canopy didn't look too bad either. Governments and NGOs are additional markets available to both small and multinational businesses, but not an individual farmer's market participant due to scale of production. On the plus side, a barrier to food (and WATER) insecurity due to weather cannot be ignored. A second plus is the ability to 'onshore' stock, plant components, waste-to-energy, or even risk/disaster management venues, to the community. Well, that's my spoke- I'm off to catch the Helm's truck.

@acastillo2760 11 ай бұрын

Are you guys hiring?

@chrisgarces627 11 ай бұрын

The hype of large-scale urban vertical farms is dying. Pioneers in this industry are slowly filling bankruptcies like Future Crops, Aerofarms, etc. Unless they solved the staggering operational cost, particularly its high energy consumption, it will be an uphill battle to survive against the high-efficiency horizontal farms in glass greenhouses. Sundrop’s farm model kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJamhnpoedanY7s is way much more sustainable than these large-scale vertical farms as they solved the energy and water supply of the farm first, by building large solar arrays and salt water reverse osmosis. It will be more sustainable in the future once they have EV delivery trucks.

@busterofcoviddeniers 11 ай бұрын

This is amazing but it won’t matter gif we don’t reduce the human population

@teddybear2840 10 ай бұрын

Workers in this are not farmers.. they're more likely highly paid specialist.. this makes the product expensive

@00TheD 11 ай бұрын

This is like fixing one broken leg with another. There is no need for vertical farming. It's unnecessary and will generate tonnes of waste that would otherwise be naturally integrated on a natural non industrial farm. So you solve it with more waste further removed from real farming. People who don't know how to grow food trying to design a process with 1st principals in mind - but leaving out any understanding of the whole process of agriculture. This is an overcomplicated, tech dependent, non solution made up by people who are removed from the industry. In 50 year as well look at this the same way as the green revolution is now. A failure, an obvious bad plan that people only went along with to make money through government subsidies.

@notlzrd9022 11 ай бұрын

So what is your solution?

@rezwansiddiqui 11 ай бұрын

We are globally producing more food than we need. Just look up. We just need to make transportation and preservation of food more efficient. And as well as tackle our love for good looking food.

@s.m.a8182 11 ай бұрын

Vertical farming is great for high density cities like tokyo , singapore or london and leave the green spaces in these cities for wildlife and the public.

@holleey 11 ай бұрын

vertical farming allows for close to 3 km² (roughly 700 acres) to be condensed into the size of a large retail store. produce can be grown all year around - completely disconnected from seasons - and what's more, pesticides can be skipped entirely. growth cycle of most products can be condensed to around 10 days, which correlates to about a 700% increase in yield compared to traditional farming. also compared to traditional farming, it can save about 3.8 million liters (1 million gallons) of water per week, while using something like 1% of land. this is because vertical farms are controlled environments where 99% of the water can be recirculated. controlled environment means that it's an entirely different world in terms of potential for future optimizations. AI systems can monitor the growth of every plant individually and determine optimized nutrients and light profiles for best possible yield as well as flavor. vertical indoor farming makes great sense. we can finally stop fighting with nature growing in the open. of course there are limitations, too, but at the current trajectory, everything points at a future where they can be solved without a doubt.

@rezwansiddiqui 11 ай бұрын

@@holleey you are right. But do know that most of global producers (farmers) produce without little use of technology. Vertical farming will also reduce our food diversity to a single digit. I don't want that. It is risky for a healthy society. Modern green revolution already did that (reducing crop diversity) once, and now we are struggling.