In the fall of 2016, Kimball Musk and his colleague Tobias Peggs are planning to launch the Square Roots project, which will help budding businessmen master the principles of innovative agriculture.
The entrepreneurs will create vertical farms inside 10 shipping containers with an area of about 29 sq. m each. The containers will grow "organic" greens and each mini-farm will be run by a young entrepreneur. Such a scheme will allow novice businessmen to gain experience in farming and teach them how to make a profit from this business.
Musk and Peggs' vertical farm will use technology from startups Freight Farms and ZipGrow. One Square Roots container in terms of yield corresponds to 80 acres of farmland.
The vertical farm has several advantages over traditional farming. These farms use 80% less water than conventional ones. It is important that vertical farms allow fresh greens to be grown directly within the city, that is, in places where labor and consumers are concentrated.
If Square Roots perform well, then similar businesses will be built within New York and other cities in the United States.
Vertical farms could be a promising new technology business in agriculture. Currently, in addition to Square Roots, several test sites have been launched in the United States that will test the commercial potential of the technology.
In particular, major investors Goldman Sachs and Prudential Financial have invested $ 39 million in the AeroFarms vertical farm in Newark, USA. Housed in a warehouse, this farm promises to be the largest vertical farm in the world. From November, AeroFarms plans to partner with "organic" food supplier Farmigo to sell greens at grocery stores in New York City.
AeroFarms plans to grow 900 tons of fresh herbs per year without pesticides and sunlight. This is three times more greenery than can be grown on traditional farmland of comparable size. The farm is equipped smart system controlling the conditions on the racks with plants: soil moisture, light level, and more. AeroFarms will use 95% less water and 50% less fertilizer than traditional crop production. At the same time, it will be possible to position the products as "organic", since pesticides and herbicides will not be used during cultivation, because there are no pests or weeds inside the warehouse.
Such projects at the intersection of the traditional food industry and high technologies attract the attention of investors due to the high commercial potential that can be realized in the coming years. Logistics savings and high productivity can be the foundation successful business vertical farms.
Vertical farming: pros and cons
Vertical farming is an economically and environmentally beneficial concept that allows you to cultivate plants or animals in vertical planes. Vertical farms reduce the need for new agricultural land, thereby conserving natural resources.
Vertical farming is an excellent idea for minimizing land use without compromising food supply. The idea of creating vertical trusses will entail new round agricultural development. All you need to do is find fertile urban land, build concrete blocks and start cultivating vegetables, pigs, fruits, poultry and fish. The growing environment must be structured and controlled. Of course, vertical farming has a number of advantages and disadvantages.
Vertical farms: pros
Efficiency. A growing number of farmers are moving away from traditional farming in favor of vertical farming. They are confident in the absolute effectiveness of this method. By choosing vertical farming, you save yourself the financial burden of purchasing pesticides or insecticides. Since all crops are cultivated in a controlled environment, the chances of attack by pests and insects are extremely low.
Protection from adverse weather conditions. Protecting crops and plants from harsh weather conditions is one of the most important benefits of vertical farming. The fact is that the temperature level of the vertical farm favors the growth of crops and plants, the sale of fertilizers at this time is an indisputable plus. Weather events such as hurricane, hail, drought and frost have little or no effect on vertical agriculture products. With the ever-changing global temperature, many farmers tend to consider this cultivation method the most appropriate.
Saving water resources and waste. Comparative analysis of vertical and traditional agriculture shows that the first method significantly reduces water consumption. Almost 70% of the world's drinking water is used in traditional agriculture, while vertical agriculture only needs 30-40% of water resources. Conserving water resources is another benefit of vertical farming. Plants and crops grown on these farms trigger the evaporation process. In turn, this process allows farmers to reuse water for irrigation purposes. Water consumption is approaching a minimum. Thus, vertical farms contribute to the sustainable use of natural resources.
No spoiled products. The risk of product spoilage is extremely low or zero. The peculiarity of vertical farming is that the resulting crop is consumed immediately after harvest. The need for transport costs to transport products from one place to another is excluded, since all agricultural crops are intended for consumption within the city.
Vertical farms: cons
High costs. The main disadvantage of the idea of vertical farming is the high costs. Everyone knows that an urbanized area is more expensive than agricultural land. Anyone who wants to bring the idea of vertical farming to life should be ready for large financial investments. Buying land is not the only costly issue. It is necessary to provide the vertical truss with electricity. The creation of a controlled microclimate also entails considerable costs. Some disadvantages make themselves felt only in the process of work, therefore, they should be provided for.
Limited varieties of vegetables and fruits. The inability to cultivate various varieties of vegetables and fruits is another obstacle to the development of vertical farming. The reason is that such a controlled microclimate allows only a few varieties of vegetables and fruits to be grown.
Due to the likely disadvantages of vertical farming, some farmers prefer traditional farming. However, creative farmers tend to pay attention to the undeniable benefits of pursuing such a lucrative idea.
The article is provided by the himagroprom.ru project, which offers wholesale fertilizers at affordable prices for farmers.
One of the possible solutions to the food problem of the future may be vertical farms located directly in megacities.
Every year the area of fertile land is decreasing. So, if in 1950 each person accounted for about 0.52 hectares, then by 2050 this figure will be no more than 0.19 hectares. Scientists are trying to solve the upcoming problems in various ways: some propose to grow plants in deserts, while others - to move farms to cities, giving impetus to the development of urban "agriculture".
Once, during one of the seminars, students complained that they were tired of the relentless stream of negativity and the feeling of powerlessness. Then, together with the professor, they took up the problem of growing plants on the roofs of Manhattan high-rise buildings. This was not enough for them, because the results of the studies carried out showed that in this way it is possible to feed only 2% of the population of Manhattan. It was then that Despomier came up with the idea of creating multi-storey vertical farms.
When developing vertical farms, they are going to take the well-proven hydroponic and aeroponic methods of growing plants as a basis. Hydroponics (from the Greek "hydro" - water and "ponos" - work, ie "working solution") - a technology for growing plants without soil, in a nutrient aqueous solution containing in the optimal concentration and easily assimilated form all the necessary substances for a specific Aeroponics (aerial culture) is a technology for growing plants without soil and substrates, in which the roots are in the air, and the necessary substances are supplied through drip spraying with nutrient solutions. Nutrient mixtures are fed continuously or at short intervals so that the roots do not have time to dry out.
Both technologies are superior to traditional approaches in terms of environmental friendliness and the volume of crops obtained per hectare of land, and also significantly reduce water consumption. So, for the aeroponic method of growing plants, only 1/10 of the water consumed in classical agricultural methods is needed.
Robotic vertical farms are one of the promising areas in agriculture, a way to increase the efficiency of investments and labor productivity in agriculture.
As a rule, these are multi-storey greenhouses or shelving, lined with trays of greenery, illuminated by LEDs. Creating an artificial, controlled environment can reduce the need for pesticide use, water and energy consumption. The feed growing cycle is accelerated. In the mid-tenths, a vertical farm can produce up to 5 tons of biomass per day, such as green fodder for livestock.
A vertical farm can be a complex robotic device, or it can use specialized robots in separate areas.
Appearance
An example of a lettuce factory.
Examples of products
A robotic system for growing green biomass - the so-called "vertical farm". Robotic system with a capacity of 1 ton of forage sprouts per day. The cost of the system is about $ 233 thousand in January 2017. Per unit of time, this vertical robot farm grows 400% more biomass than humans. Among other advantages, the farm practically does not need fertile soils, and also consumes less water compared to conventional agricultural land.
USA, RoBotany
The company was founded in June 2016 with the backing of an Auckland startup accelerator. The first version of the farm was deployed on an area of about 50 square meters and produced 0.45 kg of microfoliate greens or herbs per day. February 2017 was marked by expansion - a team of entrepreneurs leased warehouse premises with a total area of over 3.7 thousand square meters. The second version of the farm is located in the corner of the factory, occupying 185 square meters. Its daily output is about 18 kg of mass. The third version is under development - it will occupy 1,858 square meters and will be able to produce over 900 kg of biomass per day.
The farm has been under construction since 2016 and is scheduled to be launched in the summer of 2017. The farm will be able to produce up to 30 thousand heads of lettuce per day, which corresponds to an output of 10 million heads per year. In this case, an almost completely automated cultivation technology will be used. Spread plans to use various robots at its mega-factory. The factory under construction is of the "vertical farm" type, and only artificial LED lighting is provided. Factory area - 4800 sq.m. The robotization of the factory is expected to reduce manual labor by 50%.
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2017.12.08. Similar structures can be built in the coming years in other countries.
2017.08.14 ... # vertical farms #RoBotany.
2017.05.09 ... #New Jersey #Aerofarm A vertical farm in New Jersey, USA, grows cabbage, arugula, spinach and romaine (braid salad). The technology delivers 130 times the efficiency of field farms, while requiring 95% less water and eliminating the use of pesticides. The crop is harvested 24 times a year, the season, weather conditions and the geographical location of the farm do not matter.
Urban Crops opted for hydroponics. Vandecruce notes that they recycle the water several times after it evaporates from the plants and pull it out of the moist air. It is also treated with ultraviolet light to prevent the spread of disease.
Perhaps the key benefit of vertical farming is that it uses much less water. “We made an assessment with lettuce leaves and realized that we were reducing water consumption by 5% compared to traditional cultivation in the fields,” explains Vandekruce.
But Urban Crops has no plans to make money selling crops. He plans to make money selling his vertical farms.
He designed growth systems as a product in and of itself - people could buy them to grow food in relatively tight spaces - and perhaps move the farm to urban areas or complexes like university campuses. This unit can also be placed next to existing production lines on greenhouse farms.
One of the biggest names in vertical farming, however, has a different business model. Based in New Jersey, USA, AeroFarms have opened what they say is the world's largest indoor vertical farm with a total area of 7,000 square meters. The company hopes to produce delicious greens in large quantities.
Ed Harwood is an inventor and agricultural expert who came up with the technology that made this possible. He came up with this idea a few years ago while working at Cornell University, where aeroponic systems were used to grow plants in the laboratory. Why is this approach not being used on a larger scale, he asked himself?
“I asked: how did it happen? People said: oh, you can't make money with this, the sun is free, it's expensive to make light and all that, ”recalls Harwood.
This state of affairs did not suit him. After much experimentation, he came up with a system and nozzle design for spraying aeroponic mist onto the roots of his plants. At AeroFarms, roots grow through thin tissue, not soil. But the details of how he decided key problem- how to keep the nozzles clean over time remains a trade secret.
“Every nozzle I bought off the shelf had significant problems,” Harwood says. "I had to do something and came up with a solution intuitively." But he doesn't tell anyone about him.
Like Urban Crops, AeroFarms prioritizes growing fast-growing vegetable salads and greens. Harwood believes that the demand for such locally grown produce in large factories may one day become a feature of the city's outskirts. It also guarantees the crispness and freshness that consumers want.
Harwood strongly believes that the business he and his colleagues have started can be profitable. But there are many skeptics.
Michael Hamm, professor of sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University, is one such. He notes that vertical farms are dependent on a constant supply of electricity, much of which comes from fossil fuel sources.
“Why waste this energy to make a salad when you can get the light from the sun?” He says.
He says there is simply no economic point in growing some crops this way. "At 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, the amount of energy required to produce wheat would come out at about $ 11 per loaf of bread." 
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Hamm recognizes some of the benefits of this approach. If closed systems are well supported, this technology should theoretically produce reproducible results with every harvest — you are more likely to get crops of the same quality every time. Plus, while the vertical farm is quite expensive, it's a more attractive option for first-time people in the farming business - they don't have to spend years figuring out how to deal with the vagaries of the sun and seasons. No substitutes for this experience have yet been invented.
With the advancement of vertical farming technologies and the likely decline in costs, some are betting that people will want to grow their own greens at home.
Neofarms is a German-Italian startup that anticipates this. Its founders Henrik Jobczyk and Maximilian Richter developed a prototype of a vertical farm the size of a household refrigerator-freezer.
“We developed it in standard sizes kitchen cabinet, ”explains Jobczyk, adding that their plan is to make the device available in an integrated or free-standing design, however they like. People who buy this unit will have to pay for electricity, keep Neofarms clean and constantly refill with water. But in return, they will receive the freshest food.
“With the plants growing in the system, you know about the conditions in which they grew,” says Jobczyk. "And you get freshness, which is one of the biggest problems with fresh vegetables, especially greens."
Supermarkets of the future may have their own miniature vertical farms.
Choosing your own plants and eating them straight away gives you more vitamins and other nutrients that can be lost during packaging and shipping. Many consumers already grow herbs on window frames, but this is inexpensive and ineffective. Perhaps in the future, this will be an effective and ubiquitous way to feed yourself a crunchy salad.