Watch the next episode about San Francisco becoming a zero waste city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg3OA1s8-SI&list=UUJsSEDFFnMFvW9JWU6XUn0Q
As urban populations continue to rise, innovators are looking beyond traditional farming as a way to feed everyone while having less impact on our land and water resources. Vertical farming is one solution that’s been implemented around the world. Vertical farms produce crops in stacked layers, often in controlled environments such as those built by AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms grows a variety of leafy salad greens using a process called “aeroponics,” which relies on air and mist. AeroFarms’ crops are grown entirely indoors using a reusable cloth medium made from recycled plastics. In the absence of sun exposure, the company uses LED lights that expose plants to only certain types of spectrum. AeroFarms claims it uses 95% less water than a traditional farm thanks to its specially designed root misting system. And it is now building out a new 70,000 square foot facility in a former steel mill. Once completed, it’s expected to grow 2 million pounds of greens per year, making it the largest indoor vertical farm in the world.

For more on AeroFarms: http://aerofarms.com/

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This Farm of the Future Uses No Soil and 95% Less Water

| Vertical farming | 19 Comments
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19 Comments

  • Yatin Mondkar

    I support this endeavor, but I want to point out a very important mistake/falsehood. The claim that the CEO Rosenberg made about his company's method of farming "reduces their energy footprint," is patently false. Plants grown using any artificial light, including light that uses only certain wavelengths of the light spectrum, will technically will have a greater energy footprint than any plant grown with natural sunlight. If electricity is being used, than that automatically makes you less energy efficient than using a giant source of free energy called the sun.

    There are vertical farming methods that have the same benefits as AeroFarms method in terms of water usage and are pesticide free but don't use electricity and instead use sunlight to grow their crops.

  • rcacad

    I see nature vs nurture. You nurture the human idea and get fed. Nature is void, on autopilot unabridgged. The overunity can be harnessed. I think this equasion is technology vs nature. Technology not equal to nature BUT as a result of. Moral of the story? Dont smoke ciggarettes.

  • LittleBigKayCey

    Dickson is on TWIV all the time, and I'm glad his name was mentioned! I really like this idea, we already caused so much damage and this could help the food chain, but also environment, reduce famine, and help economies!

  • ManicMindTrick

    Growing things under the sun is still a lot more environmentally friendly as the electricity consumption for running the LED lamps and what looked like ordinary T5HO bulbs plus the fans will be rather high. Unless you are stacking solar panels on the roof which changes everything. With such a high energy consumption I'm not sure a roof alone is sufficient coverage area for the entire operations need for electricity.

  • Abydos_77

    This will definitely help and i think its an absolutely excellent idea and needs to be implements worldwide. However people are people, they will demand variety or look else where. I'm not sure if its possible and what the logistics would be, but can larger crops/vegetables be grown in this manner? Such as potatoes, wheat, rice, corn, beans, pumpkins etc. If so then awesome.

    What could be even better is powering it via solar, wind or tidal energy etc as well as having is connected to desalination plants. That way its completely self sufficient energy wise, as well as having year round unlimited fresh water that wouldn't be affected by droughts.

  • Bruce Angel

    I'm sure this will be the thing as we move forward. I can see one in every community. Changing peoples perceptions of what's good to eat along the way.

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