Singapore has only 1% of its land available for agriculture, so it imports 90% of its food requirements. The government is looking to curb this dependence on outside food sources under a programme titled ‘30 by 30,’ which aims to allow Singapore to grow 30% of its produce by the year 2030. Local vertical farms like Sustenir are at the forefront of bringing about this change. VICE visits the sustainable start-up to understand the future of food.

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Can Vertical Farms Fix the Future of Food?

| Vertical farming | 19 Comments
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19 Comments

  • Duns Broccoli

    The problem is that you need soil in order to have the proper spectrum of nutrition inside the plants. These are great products, but they don't address the need for fungal and micro-orgs inside the growth cycle. Without them there are immune system pathways that are being neglected which increase the likelihood of disease.

    Again, science and capital are failing to strike the core of the problem in order to make shortcuts which are profitable instead of beneficial to human life.

    We are too focused on making things "more productive" or "more efficient" but we look at these concepts through the language of an empiricism that is submissive to market forces. We don't question population relative to healthy land usage. We continue to push for maximality at any cost because it's the easiest way to produce more profit.

    We don't need more humans or more profit. We need better quality, healthier humans who have enough space and freedom to live properly. Ironically, if we focused on that we would probably inherently become more intelligent, produce better ideas and strategies and we would all profit in a currency more important than material.

    It's like we only want the benefits of "organic"ness in order to continue to engineer GMO human beings who are ideologically MPK fertilized and sprayed with RoundUp. It doesn't make any sense. Why don't we engineer ideologically "organic" human beings who are able to garden organic food and feed themselves? The dogma of global capital is just so exhausting.

  • Worm Boy

    This is a joke. Chemical slurry fossil fuel trash is not food inside or out. Waste of electricity which is made from fossil fuels also, real sustainable asshole.

  • Jeffrey Robles

    Did an essay on this topic a while back. Safer for the environment whether it’s on land usage or more importantly water usage. (Up to 50% more efficient) Any one around the world can have access to healthier/fresher foods and reduce food miles that pollute earth. These can be placed anywhere from unused mines to freighter crates!

  • MortTheTransatlantic

    Can hear all my fellow green growers sighing, when the lads got pushed out the hills in emerald county this innovation started, 30 yr ago! Not with this guy , good on this guy tho spreading the word to a wider audience ! Really helpful people realising they can do this in their closets

  • memlafeder

    He is a smart kid, knows about his shit, that is a fact. But when it comes to motivation and capital, I can't say he built up everything by the earnings of himself. I also bet, he had some self experience on growing weed, which may be another motivation for him. 🙂
    Benjamin Swan: (that ceo of sustenir)
    “My mentors are my mother – who’s a savvy entrepreneur – and father, a former university lecturer and inventor.”

  • bios47

    All I'm interested about these high tech farms is can they make produce that also tastes good. As someone who have their own garden and grows some veggies and fruits the quality of natural produce is on another level compared to what's sold in the store. I've been in the Netherlands which is known for being very high tech when it comes to farms and it's also the country where I've had the worst tasting veggies ever.. bland, plastic tasting shit.

  • richard weidner

    great video, very interesting subject matter. too bad the guy who really seems to know his stuff had a pretty thick accent (I'm an amerakkun old guy), is speaking through a mask over music that is pretty cool sounding but not very helpful right here
    still, great video

  • Дауд Мухамеджанов

    What I see: Promises, thousands of typical startup promises and raspberry like cotton buds without juice in a plastic box for ridiculous price. Then I want to try a strawberry: they only grow specific sort of it looking like potato and having almost the same taste, just a nice smell and allergic as any other. Amazing, my applause !
    Creating technology to make shitty products and then convince people around that it should be like that: plastic boxes, enormously washed(that's why any grocery wouldn't live long), huge size, weighted and packaged especially to look better(red fishnet with unriped hard tomatoes, yellow for old potatoes, orange for old onion).
    My mom used to buy vegetables on bazaars and only thing is really needed was a pack of plastic bags that were used until they just get rotten. Onion bought for couple of month and same with potatoes.
    Now you but that amazing 3kg fishnet pack of washed potatoes and after 1.5 week it should go automatically to the thrash bin.
    So, what's the point ?

  • Special-T-419 On Urban Dictionary

    So why not hydroponics Is this taste better or something? Yeah I I don't get it, why this over hydroponics I get the growing indoor bit.