Is Vertical Farming the High Tech Future of Food?

[@UndecidedMF]

What do you think of vertical farming? Have you tried any yet? And be sure to check out my video on The Mechanical Battery - A Flywheel Comeback: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bomVhmqYebOWhq8

[@waylontmccann]

Great video Matt. I didn't know Elon even had a brother. I'm glad to see that changing the world for the better seems to be a thing for them, maybe making up for their family's past, but even still, I think it a noble and worthy endeavor.

[@artcurious807]

the biggest challenge will be growing corn and wheat indoors. but vertical farming is the future. shipping everything we eat a thousand miles is ridiculous. food production should be local.

[@xvbd6067]

As if you don't waste enough food, and add farmers to a growing list of jobs replaceable with robots

[@davidtee5367]

@@xvbd6067 there are also tractors that drive themselves using gps

[@Damascus_404]

Should also pair aquafarming (fish) with aquaponics, more protein and helps with the aquaponics.

[@coldtesla6212]

It is the future, as soon as they figure out the cost, I tried this in my small outdoor garden, failed on a grand scale, but, learned a lot and hopefully this year will be better.

[@GD-cs4nh]

What were the biggest things you learned?

[@coldtesla6212]

@@GD-cs4nh lighting, my rows were too close together and the wrong direction. support for the plants and trimming, I trimmed too much.

[@rando007]

Good luck!

[@Nootnootman]

Let us know how you do this year mate!

[@johndoh5182]

For people with a little more space I think Aquaponics may be the better way to go, and you get fish along with plants so it's a two in one. I have a vision of building a home with a 3rd story that can deal with vertical farming and then an area outside set up for aquaponics using fish. Solar, solar, solar. If I can plan this properly I have a home in the tropics where I can grow the typical temperate greens along with strawberries in a more controlled environment then have the space for different trees, animals and tropical crops.

[@rolypoly4920]

I love the idea of "farm towers" in major cities making it easier and cheaper to eat healthy in cities.

[@FarmersAreCool]

How is electricity cheaper than sunlight ?

[@rolypoly4920]

@@FarmersAreCool So the idea is that it isn't just electricity vs sunlight, its sunlight and acres of land vs electricity and less land. Solar or fusion energy could make the electricity cost less than the land cost, even when factoring in electricity. Plus you factor in the reduced cost of shipping since the city is right there as opposed to a farm hundreds of miles away.

[@zaza-ik5ws]

@@FarmersAreCool We could optimize leds to emit wavelengths that a specific crop needs.

[@williamchapman7508]

Start factoring in the costs. Any land within a city comes at a cost far greater than farmland. The area required to generate solar energy to run a vertical farm would require extensive areas far greater than the vertical farm. The sheer amount of light energy from the sun required to grow many food crops would increase the cost of the vegetable by a massive factor. It is not economically feasible to grow say cauliflower/cabbage/broccoli using artificial lighting - hydroponically only possible using direct sun exposure.

[@HyenaBlank]

Technically, it's not a new concept. The greenhouses that we know of today started out as a kind of 'vertical farm' that are referred to as Fruit Walls. I'm not too sure what they were originally called, but that's the main name I see em called now. Basically used thermal energy to help plants grow on the walls as the heat soaked up by the wall during the day would also keep the plants warm at night

[@lsh3rd]

In my experience with hydroponics, you do not run the lights 24/7. More like 19 hours per day. Small nitpick, I know.

[@michaelnord9081]

You have to provide a certain number of photons to the plant. If you do it in 12 hours or 24 depends on the type of plant.

[@EC-dz4bq]

They do 19 hours for some plants as shorter daylight hours causes a shift to produce more for reproduction and less for fruit or other traits. There is no real studies for keeping the lights on for 24 hours, or giving plants a sleep time/cooldown time. All claims are just anecdotal. The main issue is mostly, too little light (Not including hotspots, proper heat control etc..) The common trope of 19 on 6 off was or maybe still is a common trope passed around on cannabis growing forums and websites. This is entirely anecdotal and even if it had some standing... no evidence to support it outside of that specific plant. You also told on yourself... with that little bit of information. So be careful, good luck with your plants.

[@lsh3rd]

@@EC-dz4bq Thanks for the reply... told on myself??? Not sure what you mean.

[@gryph01]

In my experience, increased lighting time promotes leaf growth, then start cutting back lighting time as fruit forms. This seems to match the life cycle of the plant.

[@lassielyra]

@@EC-dz4bq don't plants need a down-time as constant light doesn't give it time to digest the smaller carbohydrates into starches and other longer-chain carbs? They evolved in a world where there isn't always light so their metabolism is geared for down-time and they use this to convert smaller carbs into starches plus if I recall correctly this gives their chlorophyll time to "reset". Most other (even single-cell) organisms die or suffer with constant light but it would definitely be interesting to see studies around it.

[@JimPekarek]

After hearing about lettuce being popular in vertical farms, I'm curious how food waste breaks down by plant. In my experience, the vast majority of lettuce ends up thrown away, but things like broccoli, artichokes, cauliflower, bell peppers, etc are usually eaten before they rot. I don't have larger statistics on that though, and google searches don't seem to turn up much good research.

[@mikeferris8033]

10-12 years ago I seriously discussed with my team the idea of finding funding and starting up in vertical farming. One of our concepts was to build over the roofs of hockey arenas (I'm in Canada) and inspire the local community to volunteer.

[@david96pk]

I think that is important to say that even 70% of freshwater is used in agriculture, most of this food goes to feed animals. So reducing our consumption of animal products will reduce the amount of water consumed as well

[@JEFFLIQUID25]

No shortage of fresh water in alot of areas that have live stock.

[@kylecramer8489]

Awesome topic. Also great audio mixing on this one!

[@UndecidedMF]

Thanks!

[@shermanpotts2440]

"The growth of vertical farming" I see what you did there.

[@UndecidedMF]

I love my puns.

[@altond511]

@@xiaoka What in the hell are you talking about?

[@iron-farmer]

Grows out

[@The_Digital_Samurai]

I used to do Aquaponics in NJ. A heavy snowfall 3 years ago wiped out all my progress however when my greenhouse collapsed and crushed all my gear. It took me 5 years to get to that point as I don't have a lot of money. Rebuilding seems to be taking longer.

[@Maadhawk]

I have had dreams of this for years, but never realized others were already tackling this problem. Vertical farming is indeed the future of food growth. As I envision it, eventually all crops, including most fruiting trees will be grown in this manner. I picture a skyscraper, 100 stories tall with 10 meters per floor. 1 meter is the structural space between floors leaving 9 meters for actual setup. This barely gives enough room for things like apple and orange trees. Other crops, like grains, can be stacked 2 or 3 times before that space is used up. Other crops still, like lettuce, can be stacked dozens of times in that much space per floor. My building would be 1 square KM in size. The ground floor would be packaging, shipping, and computer control from where the farmers would monitor their FarmScraper. Subterranean levels would house water recycling systems. Massive freight elevators would be designed to be used in conjunction with robotics to automate the entire process. A service elevator would provide for human access for maintenance and the like. These buildings would be built from reinforced concrete and designed to last 250 years or more. The outside would be lined with a mesh of some kind that would hold more soil and allow for climbing plants to grow on the outside of the FarmScraper to provide more space for plants that can convert CO2 emissions back into O2 and capture the carbon. The roof would be lined with solar panels and vertical wind turbines. This wouldn't provide for all of the power needs of such a structure, the pumping power for nutrient reinforced water alone would be huge, but it would help. Such a structure could reduce the need for arable land in the United States alone by more than 90% allowing us to repurpose the land for other things, both for cities to live in, but also to expand our wild life preserves and national parks and forests. Such structures could also be built in places traditionally not known for growing large crops, like the deserts of Africa and the Middle East. This would go a long way to helping stabilize the world as well as a well fed people is a far less violent people.

[@peteaulit]

"Have you tried any yet?" yes, I had my own aquaponic system, one outdoor running on sunlight and one indoor with LED and they worked fine. It's more than doable on a small scale for a family. Pretty soon we'll also have meat grown in a lab hitting the market. Maybe fewer vegetarians in the future... :)

[@UndecidedMF]

Thanks for sharing. And lab grown meat is fascinating to me.

[@mdc4runner]

Sounds like some “herb”-an gardening to me if ya know what I mean

[@adamkrasneski3679]

@@UndecidedMF honestly that sounds terrifying. But, as someone who is meat conscious but not totally vegitarian, i am admittedly curious.

[@peteaulit]

@Rainbow Capone ok… I was responding to Matt’s question a while back and fail to see the point you’re making besides that you didn’t get my joke at the end but whatever. This being said, if you think that the western world will continue to be the land of plenty for many more years, think again and think water. I’m going to leave you with that thought and go to sleep.

[@muhammadadnan1430]

I have some questions, even if the lifetime of a LED light of 50 thousand hours, with the running of LED lights 24/7, LED lights to break down within 6-7 years. Won't that add up to the cost? Also how environment friendly are LED light wastes? Are those recyclable?

[@RTDice11]

The costs are still minimal when put against wide scale farming. It's also far more feasible for the power plant lighting the LEDs to go Green than it is for the every farm tractor and combine to go all electric - and then need their charging stations to go green.

[@aelux4179]

The 50k hour estimate is fairly low for bespoke fixtures, as someone in that industry i can be fairly confident when I say the boards we produce now will last for 15-20 years continuous operation.

[@muhammadadnan1430]

@@aelux4179 That's awesome to hear. But by continuous operation do you mean that they will continue to work 24-7 for 15 to 20 years? Won't heat be a problem?

[@aelux4179]

@@muhammadadnan1430 Yeah 24/7 operation. Heat is definitely a problem, to mitigate this modern fixtures come equipped with large copper heatsinks with an attached thermostat. The temperature is monitored by the system controller and when excessive temperatures are reached the fixtures are dimmed to prevent heat build up. Luckily, this level of overheating only usually ever occurs when the fixture is exposed to direct sunlight, so the small dimming effect is completely unnoticeable.

[@melonfox17]

@@aelux4179 super interesting/insightful, ty for sharing

[@timcamp6308]

I’ve had two separate Aquaponics systems. Loved them. Loved the fish too. Nice job!

[@UndecidedMF]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@jgudgell]

Haven't done it yet myself, but I've seen several projects that I want to start with for growing some veg at the house. Great video and content!

[@BrotherAlpha]

I got an Aerogarden last year and this past Christmas I bought another one and got one for my parents and my sister.

[@cherubin7th]

I just imagine a Mos Burger in Tokyo in the first floor of such a vertical farm. The salad on your burger was farmed just one minute ago.

[@eaaeeeea]

It's a very interesting topic. I see these becoming even more scalable and modular. At that point we can put a farm wherever we need one, from small apartments to city centers and massive warehouses. High efficiency indoor farms are necessary for Mars colonization too.

[@mattwardynski7429]

Cool stuff! Logan Ashcraft, the energy manager at Plenty, says most plants actually only need 18 hours of light before they go into a night cycle, not 24 hours of non stop lights. She says the load from the plant factories can actually be pretty malleable, which can be helpful for the grid (but of course it's still a lot of energy). She was on an interesting podcast from Greentech Media's The Interchange where she talked about the energy use associated with indoor farming.

[@aabbccddeeffgg1234]

i plan on doing vertical strawberry farming in a 24m2 greenhouse, and because of that i can get as much yield on those plants as i would on a lot more plants on a 2 or 3 acre farm land for strawberries. can fit about 500 plants in the greenhouse can get a 5kg (10kg at max if i was a expert) yield per plant. where out in the open the plants would give around 0.5 to 1kg yield each plant. it really does make a huge difference having it in a controlled environment

[@moritzbrinkmann9980]

i literally watched that ted talked 30 seconds before you posted this video! As always, it was a great one Matt!

[@UndecidedMF]

Ha! Good timing.

[@joshmason179]

I think more of the solution will come from backyard farming (vertical or otherwise) and permaculture - which uses vertical farming in the old fashioned sense - stacking differerent crops by layers of production in the same space (think root veg, ground cover, bushes, under canopy, canopy - all producing at once and with a far greater variety than indoor vertical farming and supporting each other, like a forest does). It's not exactly new tech, but it is a massive improvement on current agricultural practices due to the fact the nutrients are cycled rather than taken away from an area, and the crop yields are higher, too.

[@stephenmabry2866]

Great topic. Currently building hydroponic greenhouse, sans grow lights.

[@artcurious807]

one of the big problems in America is the “1,200 mile ceaser salad” delivered to the suburbs. combined with fast food and general laziness when it comes to cooking meals it’s no wonder we are the fattest and sickest people on earth. vertical farming combined with denser cities where people walk more can help solve a lot of health issues. lettuce, strawberries, and mushrooms grown in vertical urban farms can go a long way to solving some food, diet and health problems.

[@13minutestomidnight]

You wouldn't need to have 24 hr lighting. If you organised the plants in vertical columns, you could redirect natural lighting down from the roof and use internal mirrors to illuminate the plants.This would avoid the need for lighting when the sun is shining (but you might want backup lighting for cloudy weather). You could also collect rainwater for use with watering (even for only a fraction of water use).

[@Mike__B]

Also a bit on water consumption, you really shouldn't see farms using water as if that water is just "gone", that water gets stored in fruits and vegetables and the shipped to whomever consumes them, water that isn't goes into the ground, or it evaporates and goes into the air. Fresh water is by and large a renewable resource, now there is a limited amount at any given time true, but it's constantly renewing. The oceans provide freshwater all over the world just from the evaporation and clouds work.

[@anthonygrodecki7968]

Hi I live in the Netherlands one of the smallest countries in Europe but produces the largest amount of farmed food. I have to say I love going to places like Italy just to eat the tomatoes due to the taste. Here we have a number of growing systems running for years. But for me naturally grown produce tastes the best. Great video your bring a greater awareness to many people out there. Now we just have to get rid of all those cows.

[@UndecidedMF]

Thanks for sharing, Anthony. I haven't had much opportunity to try these, but when I have they've been delicious. From my experience nothing beats the taste of freshly picked and ripe vegetables no matter the source. Stuff that's been shipped thousands of miles never tastes great. I'd put good money that it's all about the soil that makes Italian tomatoes so good.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

There's a further benefit that I've not seen mentioned yet. The places where farming has generally been done are not necessarily the most pleasant or safe. They may be more prone to flooding and other natural disasters, and many crops require hot and humid conditions. More automation of farming can mitigate that, but if you can grow crops right where people find most desirable to live, that's probably the ultimate solution.

[@haggischaser1028]

I was discussing this with my wife before I even watched your video. We were talking about how current town centres and office blocks will more than likely remain empty once everything settles down due to working from home. All the empty office block would be ideal for vertical and hydroponic farms. Hopefully the landlords would see it as a viable alternative to office culture and embrace it.

[@Andy32410]

4:30 they wouldn't be running the lights 24/7, all plants have a resting period (just like us). If ran non-stop, then the plants will suffer from over exposure and all the leaves will start fraying, effectively damaging the plant, and degrading the growth process possibly even killing the plant entirely.

[@gigaus0]

small update: S.Korea has started a public project to see the viability of growing grains in grow mediums in public spaces. Report is set for Nov '21, Jun '22

[@waynewilliamson4212]

this is extremely important...I saw Brad from bonappetit visit an inside tomato farm in Michigan. Very impressive, and again, it produces 365 days a year...

[@zukaro]

It's really cool stuff. I've wanted to try growing rice hydroponically for awhile now (or perhaps even aeroponically). I think it'd be really cool to have basically a garden in a shed (or even in a trailer you can tow around) which automatically produces food with all the nutrients you need to survive. I'm not sure how much space/crop density you'd need to feed a single person with this method, but it'd be an interesting project. In general though I'd love to see vertical farms in or near the city, which produce food fully autonomously (and which replenishes crops on its own; i.e., harvests and plants seeds, and composts waste to recycle nutrients). If sewage can be recycled/composted in a safe manner (which I believe it can be, and I'm pretty sure we already use it as fertilizer) it might be a great way to fertilize said crops, while also cleaning the water. Then vertical farms may be capable of sanitizing water while also producing safe and nutritious food (you'd get a lot more bang for your buck by integrating the two systems in some way and automating them, and it'd also be a lot more sustainable overall).

[@s43m]

Look into anthroponics/peeponics.

[@AramisWyler]

I have an aquaponic setup currently, but when I upgrade my fish tank from 150 gallons to 300 I'm going to try to build a vertical extension with pvc rather than add another planter. I'm going to keep the planter for things like peppers, but there's no reason for me to waste planter space on romaine lettuce if I can put that in a pipe running down the wall.

[@thegreatfulgamer5749]

I made a vertical farm with a couple skids.. lettuce, beans, carrots, beets, potatoes and some herds came from it to start👍🏿

[@ilovefunnyamv2nd]

this is awesme, it's been a few years since I really looked into vertical hydroponics, last I knew it wasn't cost effective yet, unless you grew lettuce, and even then it was heavily automated. I would love to see my aquaponics, because rainbowtrout and a nice salad is a great combination

[@fjalics]

I think vertical farms might make an excellent dispatchable load. Overbuild the renewables, and if we are short, dial back the lights for a few hours. I think the plants can handle it.

[@masa-sn7eg]

It's clear that aeroponic farming has some benefits. Given you have the necessary resources (water, enclosed space, tech, controlled heat levels, CO2 and nutrients) this can be done anywhere, no requirements for soil, temperature, weather or rainfall. So the main benefits are: - highly controlled environment, no need for poisons (herbicides and pesticides) - chance to optimize the environment for most suitable growth for the plants - lower water requirements and better utilization of water (water can be delivered just in time) - can be done almost anywhere (access to water and sufficient temperatures are beneficial though) - faster and more growth (more efficient farming) - active control over the nutrients - enables more demanding plant varieties - more of the cops get successfully harvested - less need for transpoint And the downsides: - requires sufficient facilities and tech - requires unjustified levels of energy - the taste of products might be dull (uniform conditions for uniform results) - only limited subset of edible plants have been farmed with aeroponics - special infrastructure maintenance (fragile high tech system) - expensive compared to farmland with good conditions (not economically viable yet in many places) - requires energy supply chain (sun is almost always there) Note that I'm no expert in this field. But I have a couple of suggestions. Aeroponic farms could be used for power grid control to some extend. When more power is needed the lights and heating could be turned off. I'm sure this can be done to some extend but I have no idea whether or not the benefits weight over the drawbacks. For now this is viable for only rich economies with little space/farmland. But there is some merit to the more efficent use of water. Maybe one could use this in desert conditions. Scarce water recourses do justify the power usage and infrastructure to some level.

[@theryanwitski]

It still uses a lot of resources . You have to added fertilizers , minerals and it’s very expensive overall. We also have learned recently 24/7 will actually stunt growth. However it’s nice to see progress starting.

[@imgayasheck595]

This also applies to what's going on now so

[@AdamEspinosa]

Turns out that plants need rest too. There's just something great about sleep.

[@tfragia1]

I started doing Kratky hydroponics in my basement. I'm am totally shocked at how well it works. Do it right and you can easily have fresh salad every day using 4 square feet of space and a 100 watt led light. I won't be bothering with dirt anymore. Especially the unknown dirt you buy at the big box hardware stores. If interested, Jeb Gardener on KZbin. Don't use cheap plastic storage bins though. I use HDPE containers. Don't want chemical leaching into water.

[@vyzxyz6477]

The energy requirements of vertical farming lead to significant land use to provide the energy. For every acre of crops grown via vertical farming, 5.4 acres of solar panels would be required to supply the energy via solar power.Thus in practice, vertical farming may require more land than traditional farming, not less.

[@zyfigamer]

This is the way we need to be progressing. The amount of land we use on farming is unsustainable, and producing food in the same city where it’s used prevents wasted effort. It has the added bonus of making a city more self sufficient, which allows it to grow.

[@IDann1]

I have not heard of anything locally to myself in England.. but we do have government allotments everywhere since wartime’s , that is small plots of land that you rent for the price of a gallon of fuel per year, where you can grow whatever you like.

[@grasje1]

mixed agriculture could be a great addition to this for grains, nuts and other foods growing from trees. More effective land usage and no land degradation.

[@calivalley9056]

I love this topic. When the shipping container craze was going strong I researched the “Box” grow set ups. When scaled up in a city, per square foot, it is crazy efficient. It would be in larger cities benefit to to require a % of land to produce food in this manner. Some systems can also be used with gray water. We need to learn to live in the petri dish of our own making.

[@esamabuhadi6589]

yes I've tried it. Here in Saudi Arabia I see growing interest in vertical farming, mainly because we're a desert and water is scarce. it's in grocery shops but still more expensive than regular farm produce. hopefully this will be more common and more affordable :)

[@UndecidedMF]

Thanks for sharing! Makes a lot of sense that there'd be growing interest in Saudi Arabia. I really hope the process and prices around production keep dropping.

[@X02switchblades]

The world has enough food BUT half of it is thrown away

[@UndecidedMF]

Sadly our food is not well distributed. Systems like this could help with that.

[@imgayasheck595]

Because it's more profitable to keep people hungry and starving.

[@mdc4runner]

@@imgayasheck595 where did you get that from QAnon?

[@TheModdedwarfare3]

@@mdc4runner farmers burn their crops sometimes because its profitable to grow with subsidies but not worth shipping costs to sell

[@FarmersAreCool]

@@imgayasheck595 All tied to the price of labour in the West, which has exported all its food production offshore to brown MEn or yellow MEn, where ever the labour is cheapest to grind down everyone's quality of life. OR in the case of MExican labour, US agricorps dropped subsidized products into MExico, puttign the peasant farmers out of work, forcing a northern migration to be used as cheap labour. Inflation in western supply chains is the issue, the currencies are all debt based and this is crushing all small ownership and crushing free-markets with huge agri corps. The totality of the commercial food supply is liened/leaned of quality, food is purposefully shipped around at a loss to eat up small market shares. We need to wipe government down to nothing and just grow at home.

[@mkrafts8519]

This is an excellent concept and should certainly grow into something greater. Grains and beans are the sources of very important macro nutrients such as carbohydrates and protein. Lettuce is a bit hollow in terms of nutritional value. This is perhaps why its able to be grown with hydroponics, because hydroponics facilitates the growth of fiber but lacks nutritional density. Just like this system does well in creating sources of fiber and perhaps micro-nutrients, we could also reimagine methods of creating carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. And then merge it all together on the back end.

[@jian2521]

Theres a small vertical farm run out of a converted residential house started by two fresh grads in my neighbourhood. They use a vertical farm in a greenhouse, the cost of their produce is high though, perhaps due to their small scale design.

[@stephenpahl7538]

Recently saw an article about a very short stock Wheat thats being developed for Vert Farming, maybe soon

[@kahanumorales]

I made a tiny vertical farm in my apartment bedroom for spinach, lettuce, and a few herbs. Worked pretty well and was a very fun project

[@davidbird348]

Vertical farming has a great future. There is a lot of different things to tackle within it. But it will solve more problems than it creates. Just a quick proviso regarding this video. They will have to use some form of pest control within a closed growing system. Where ever you have plants regardless of how you guard them you will have bugs and disease. I speak from experience, I have been dealing with closed growing systems and vertical farming for a number of years.

[@PapaDougsAdventures01]

Matt, I ordered a iHarvest about a week ago but they are back ordered until March. I looked at many of the options like Tower Garden, Gardyn(most tech capable) and AeroGarden Farm to name a few. I also ordered an AeroGarden Harvest Elite that should be be here tomorrow. I intend to use the AeroGarden to germinate the seeds and then move them to the iHarvest. Thanks for all your videos

[@PinataOblongata]

What are you growing?

[@PapaDougsAdventures01]

@@PinataOblongata I’ll be growing a little bit of everything just to see what I like. I’ll then transition to the items I like to eat on a regular basis. I also want to try strawberries. I’ll probably get a Tower Garden for my patio during the summer just to try outdoor gardening.

[@PinataOblongata]

@@PapaDougsAdventures01 If it works out, change your last name to Bloomgreen and sell produce to your neighbours in a little street fair :D

[@UndecidedMF]

Nice! I had one of the small AeroGarden's years ago, but it was too noisy (and my house is too small). Definitely want to get back into that if/when we get some better space to do so.

[@Salazarsbizzar]

There's many massive projects that have recovered land using drought resistant plants and cycles of herd grazing and water management like beaver damns. These projects restored soil and agricultural potential. In Africa they spent roughly 8 billion dollars on the project and restored 6.5 trillion dollars worth of agricultural land. So I'm not sure about losing more airalbe land in the future. I do Love the positive videos on innovative stuff that undecided produces.

[@sclair2854]

It seems like is so often the case, the issue is in getting cheap clean energy.

[@ollieknight45]

1/3 of all agricultural land is used as pasture, the best way to ensure good food supply is cut meat consumption. Plant based diets use around 12x less land then omnivorous diets.

[@sclair2854]

Hopefully we can help reduce the cost of fake meats and lab grown meats to help switch the meat eating population over quicker

[@Mike__B]

I would really like to see a power comparison how much energy is used to grow food this way versus conventional methods when you factor in cost to transport.

[@lafabus6335]

Still , even taking into account 1,500 miles of transportation for traditional agriculture , traditional agriculture generates a lower CO2 footprint versus vertical farming, mostly due to the energy required for 24/7 lighting systems in vertical farms, which is not an issue as far as vertical farms accept to use only renewable power sources. Some companies do, like Futura Gaia, (www.futuragaia.com), some do not. But CO2 footprint is not the complete picture: vertical farms use...95% less water than traditional agriculture, and so much less land. Land availability might not be such a big issue in the US, but it is in Europe and in Asia.

[@fricken99]

I love this! Especially urban farming. Thanks Matt.

[@m2-x-n253]

I like ur videos, they're KLEAN, professional, to point questions nd most importantly, i dont have to zoom in to fit the whole screen.❤️👍🏽👍🏽

[@betterlifeexe]

These farms would use around 1/4 of the water of traditional crops, require fewer pesticides and herbicides, and potentially might have a lower human resource cost. I think that could offset the barriers and issues quite a bit.

[@jeroenmeester9528]

Vertical farming might be helpful for some things, but it isn't a necessity, I live in the Netherlands, most people will be aware it's quite a small country, and yet, it is the second largest food exporter in the world (after the USA), here in the Netherlands we use greenhouses, which does have the benefit of us being able to grow plants all year long, it still grows them horizontal though but that means we can still grow most other plants in this way too.

[@dougaltolan3017]

Need to be very cautious with crop optimisation. Using net weight has lead to many crops being nutritionally deficient. Rice was (is?) a perfect example of this, it was selectively bred to optimise yield while nutrition was ignored. The result is was that heritage varieties had to be hybridised back in to redress the nutrition. I hope we have learnt from that but.......

[@DaivG]

Vertical farming has a place in our future, but I'm cautious that it might even further reduce the diversity of available fruits and especially vegetables as only efficient things will be grown.

[@helenlawson8426]

It's possibly not that to big an issue as vertical farming will never replace traditional farming just take the load off it. Farmers are already looking at what you could cal artisan crops and animals to give them an edge over the larger food suppliers plus improve conditions for livestock & wildlife, this will possibly be a growing trend if city farming can become more of an industry. Here in the UK there was a massive destruction of hedgerows and old crop varieties this is now reversing with a growing thirst for the obscure.

[@iantsears]

Vertical Aeroponics has to become crowdsourced. In our home. In our apartment. Scaleable. Entry cost under ~$200. USD. Scaleable from local hardware stores.

[@AlecMuller]

If you do future videos on this topic, it would be great to cover the energy efficiency of different setups. Is photosynthesis more energy-efficient than chemically-synthesizing glucose and feeding it to plant roots?

[@UndecidedMF]

👍 I'd love to do a deeper dive and get a tour of one. Get more into the weeds (sorry, another bad pun).

[@imgayasheck595]

What about enhancing photosynthesis?

[@sarahholf9660]

Thanks Matt. Such a great video. I was trying to find a comparison between CO2 output of internal vs external farming. I pondered for a few seconds because... where could I find this information?? And then I thought of your channel. You did a great video on hydrogen fuel cell vs EV and some neat calculations! 😊 There's not a direct comparison in this video but it's good enough as it was super detailed and very educational (though I'd still love to find a way of analysing this!) I also really want to hear how people find the taste of these new crops grown indoors. Have you ever tried a bag of Plenty greens?

[@Cmdrbzrd]

These vertical farms already look awesome! I hope they manage to grow more stuff!

[@BrowncoatGofAZ]

Personally I see vertical farming as one component of the future of agriculture. It’s not the panacea to world hunger or land use for field agriculture (not yet anyway), but it’s a technology that could play a key role in the future of agriculture.

[@djcorza]

We also need to heal the soil we currently use, reduce they archaic use of fertilisers. Zero tilling and companion/rotated variety planting. This combined with Vertical farming.

[@UndecidedMF]

Yes, you are right

[@imgayasheck595]

And rewilding

[@dansanger5340]

Another reason to develop vertical farming is because of the radicalization of rural populations, which makes it imperative for urban and suburban dwellers, for their own security, to minimize reliance on them. It also reduces the amount of money going to the radical rural population, giving them less money to spend on arms and training.

[@erikistrup3477]

Thanks for a great video. After reviewing it, I got the idea to place horizontal wind turbine(s) on top and above them, some solar electricity panels. (Transparent) solar panels on the sides of the building would add electricity too.

[@0ctatr0n]

Yep I hope everyone enjoys lettuce, I WISH they'd show vertical farming actually growing nutritious foods, nuts, vegetables, stone fruit, fruit in general. This would require companies to alter the DNA of trees to grow as vines. Can it be done? maybe Crisper will come through for us. Aside from the lack of progress into foods only restaurants find vaguely useful. How about Vertical farming of seaweed, clams and oysters? It would have to be near the coast with a pipe to exchange seawater.. perhaps locating at the edge of estuaries opening out to the ocean . It would soak up a lot of the nitrogen and carbon from agricultural run off in the process.

[@tmanney09]

Great concept and it makes sense for fresh produce, but it wouldn’t work for grains. Most grains in the US go to animal feed or ethanol production and the rest are processed into consumer food that has a long shelf life. However shelf life is a crucial for the fresh produce industry.

[@matthewstone3210]

While I think vertical farming is an interesting future farming technology, I feel like we should be asking ourselves why so much of arable land is degrading so quickly? The research I've done indicates that the conventional way we do agriculture is a major factor in the degradation of farmable lands. As several other comments have suggested, I would be interested to see you do a video exploring techniques for solving the fundamental problem of eroding landscapes and what some solutions are to that. I know its not strictly in the scope of what you're channel does, but it could prove to be an interesting topic. As other comments have suggested, you regenerative agriculture and permaculture are both methods I've seen that seem to address this underlying issue of degraded land, rather than trying to invent an entirely new method of farming. Regardless, this was a great video on vertical farming.

[@nacoran]

Seems like it would work particularly well in some of the dry sunny nations in Africa and the Middle East.

[@londubh2007]

Glad you mentioned fiber optics because I wondered about their use. Also, instead of trying to grow grains, why not grow potatoes. They might lend themselves to vertical farming better.

[@Nathan-vt1jz]

I love your commitment to the pun.

[@Mechaneer]

I'm getting into vertical farming in the ocean!

[@sumerashaikh1144]

Aquaponics?

[@erblinbeqa6550]

@@sumerashaikh1144 I doubt that. I mean maybe but he can not use the salty water. The only benefit with going to the ocean is space and maybe ease of transportation

[@La-Illaha-Illa-Allah]

@@erblinbeqa6550 Floating city, with desalination plants. The resulting salt is used by the city

[@imgayasheck595]

Seaweed farming? :)

[@Mechaneer]

@@imgayasheck595 yes!!!

[@andrewemerson1613]

I'd be interested to see mid-sized cities investing into converting abandoned industrial quarters into agricultural districts, potentially paired with something like a small modular reactor

[@FarmersAreCool]

Why not use farmland for farming and re-industrialize industrial areas? Farmland is a developed infrastructure, why pitch it aside and use the city area, which the produce of the countryside supported, for creating products we can use.

[@andrewemerson1613]

@@FarmersAreCool well some of that too. but a lot of the reasoning is that it pays more to do *something* with space that is already urbanized. the agricultural lands closest to population centers can be converted. but part of the point of vertical farming practices is to take up less space. so a lot of what are farm fields now would be turning into something like a managed forest for wood, or even left back to nature to take back

[@FarmersAreCool]

@@andrewemerson1613 Don't think it can work. WIll end up shorting harvests and killing a buncha people. Better land management, entering some fallow years, better crop rotations. Biggest thing is to stop the deforesting going on for chip fibre, don't have to restore a forest, if you don't fellar buncher it to the ground when you can grow alternate fibre sources. Trees take too long to grow for shit pressboard furniture and toilet paper. There is a buncha land right now in every county with big corps sitting on ownership just to keep small holders from having a go of it. MAssive shell corp invasion, sort all that out and people can't just relocalize supply chains.

[@patriksteffan2060]

I think this will be another big revolution. In food industry tight up with as you mentioned logistics and better acces and quality of the food. This will be the future. Im sure of it!

[@bleutitanium6513]

I have a question. What do these vertical farms do with all their left over bio mass. (leaves, roots, stems ? A regular farm, they are plowed back into the soil and recycled

[@jimw544]

wow! impressive. I just retired and this almost calls me to stop woodworking and start farming. I think the investment would stop me.

[@chaydonofallon1352]

I feel limiting factor of vertical farming is the space. Growing crops like strawberries and even grains in the future seem like it can be efficient and cheap but tree and jut crops like almonds, cherries, citrus and others would limit what can be grown inside.

[@dafien530]

we need this is our cities NOW.. It would isolate the supply of food from toxins and would reduce the need to ship it everywhere. If every 12 to 20 blocks had a 'farm' and the ground floor was a grocery store, then people could get the farm fresh foods they need, at a cheaper price, and with a smaller carbon foot print.. That is if LED lighting is used and only the right wavelengths of light for each crop. I am by no means a environmentalist, but this would help the environment overall AND ensure our food supply is safe from toxins. Since it is all indoors there would be little chance that pesticides would be needed. It would also decentralize our food production a safe guard against bio-terrorism.

[@knoxholst67901]

I would also like to point out that urban land use is growing at more than twice the rate of population growth . It grew by 10 million acres from 2002-2012. Check out the USDA publication Major Uses of Landin the United States, 2012.

[@RussellFineArt]

Great vid, I’m sure most fruits and veggies will be grown via vertical farming one day. Matt, could you make a vid addressing the need, and growth of bamboo and industrial hemp as over 1/2 the world’s forests are gone but the increase for wood, paper and cloth products are growing?

[@UndecidedMF]

Interesting topic suggestion. Thanks!

[@zmavrick]

Great coverage of the advantages. Also very lacking on the disadvantages. It could be a good intermediate step especially in certain areas, but keep in mind the various waste streams, manufactured nutrients, some plants needing genetically modified to grow this way, etc.

[@Greenskies321]

The vertical towers are the best ROI out of all of them. You don’t need the AI components to make these work well. 1 person can operate up to 800 towers by themselves and that is the equivalent of around 800-1000 acres of land. Also with aquaponics you can grow fish with crops and have another output.

[@deanjohnson4597]

The thing he fails to mention is the aging population and the declining birth rates. The population will reach a plateau and decline if nothing changes. Biggest plus for vertical farms is control of nutrients and lack of chemicals.

[@nathanlewis42]

Yes but the plateau is still decades away. 2050 if I remember correctly and the population is projected to rise to over 9 billion people so it’s all still true.

[@troyfred8007]

I have a vertical farm setup ( 2, 7 foot towers. We have produced lettuce, tomatoes and bok choi. ) They are so far way better tasting.

[@BrowncoatGofAZ]

4:04 I remember a commercial from a company who ranted about declining food nutrition. I forget what their claim was, but this is really why. Also the CEO was decried as a pseudo-scientist

[@eordonez85]

Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors can produce all the cheap clean energy needed to grow food this way.

[@eordonez85]

... and make the concrete which is an energy and co2 intensive procedure and the glass needed for these farms.

[@akinumber1]

Masayoshi-san. Big investor!

[@KarmaTiger]

A minor correction: you claim it requires lighting 24/7. Plants require a dark cycle. In general a 16 hour light, 8 hour lights off is preferred. Keen eyes will note that's 1/3rd less lighting energy than you suggest.

[@derFleetadmiral]

This should be perfectly suitable for large scale indoor Cannabis production. Because in most western countrys you can't grow Cannabis outdoors due to the climate. So you have to grow inside. So if you can use Aeroponic growing, you will drown in money, because soil and fertilizer are the only options to cut costs, for every producer. The only question is, is it possible to grow Cannabisplants like that? 🤔

[@Julsnalice]

There is no question this is the future of fast growing leafy greens and anything that’s currently mass produced in greenhouses or semi hydroponics. The trick is not at all figuring out how to grow grains, tree fruits and heavy tubers. In fact that’s very unlikely to ever be viable, even if you could increase the yield by 5x that’s still less than $2 of product return per square metre before considering your costs. but what we can do is rotate our diets towards these high value per square metre leafy foods we can grow quickly in these vertical hydroponic setups. This in turn leaves more land resources to continue to improve producing those larger scale, slower growing food products that are still significantly more economical in improved conventional production. There is also very little value growing plants in this manner whose product has a exceedingly high storage life, or is not eaten without first being processed into a long storage life product. Forget about grains, potatoes etc. Focus should be on things that require refrigeration and have short shelf lives, which basically is exactly what is already happening, economics always figures these things out on its own at the end of the day.

[@kimwilliams722]

Thank you mat I really enjoyed your presentation

[@charlesabbethy490]

I'd like to hear more about the use of fiberoptic daylight transmission.

[@pqrstsma2011]

i still can't picture grains like rice and wheat being grown in these systems (i mean at the quantity/scale required to feed the local population).... same with fruits/nuts that are usually grown on trees, like apples, oranges, olives and almonds.... but for all other herbs and small veggies, i think all production should move to hydro-/aero-/aqua-ponics

[@Time30013]

This is a topic I have been very interested in lately. Really would like to get involved with a company that does this. From an automation side it seems like a lot of fun. From a land conservation side think about how this could help land conservation return some farm land back to woods.