BARCELONA, SPAIN — A Barcelona-based company has developed a solar powered floating farm system that could ease growing food demand around the world.

Smart Floating Farms, otherwise known as SFF, was developed by Forward Thinking Architecture. The idea was inspired by traditional grid-shape fish farms in Asia.

The structure is 200 meters wide and 350 meters long, which is roughly the size of 6 football fields. They can be connected to form a cluster of modules.

The floating farm has three levels: the top level is installed with photovoltaic panels to harvest sunlight for electricity and it has rainwater collectors for irrigation purposes; second level serves as a greenhouse for the vegetables, which are grown without soil under the hydroponic system; and the ground level is used as a fish farm on the open sea, as well as a fish egg hatchery, a slaughterhouse and a storage room for the fish.

All the modules are centrally controlled by software via Cloud technology. The production data will be analysed and can be used to make comparisons on food needs for specific cities.

Each SFF is estimated to have a maximum production of 8.152 tons of vegetables and 1.703 tons of fish per year. The floating farms are ideal for densely populated cities near coastal areas such as Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong.
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Smart Floating Farm: Forward Thinking Architecture’s invention could help feed the world – TomoNews

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18 Comments

  • Hail Nut

    The Story behind this idea started from Aquaponics (used already worldwide in various scopes, i.e. such as in Containers with a Glasshouse on top, where a Fish Farm (inside the container) feeds the vegetable growing in the glass house above on top of the container); However, the idea of Floating Farms / SMART Floating Farms @ForwardThinkingArchitects received now various prizes and scientific merits at various contests and it is close to the PoC and Roll-out on a international scale. The ability to use renewable energies such as SolarPanels and alike as a dedicated software behind to power such a Floating Farm makes it a SMART Floating Farm; Secured Sourcing has developed a unique IoT solution (Mechatronics / MecatronicSystems Engineering) to power such SMART Floating Farms with an App controlling the entire production.

  • Steve Fortuna

    This had better be a closed-loop, regenerative system because nothing will be more counter-productive than letting fertilizer/nitrogen runoff from the hydroponics get into the ocean, where it will stimulate algae blooms, thus killing the fish. A zero impact plant food like TerraCycle should be considered, but it would be easier to use a portion of the raised fish for fertilizer.

    As to cost efficiency: This approach has major capital requirements but is cheap from an operational standpoint. There are zero land costs, zero taxes, fertilizer costs, hopefully with micro-tubines added each barge can be autonomous and have enough battery power to run effectively for over 24 hours with no sunlight.

  • The Mauwow Homestead

    They could do this in lakes, and then use aquaponics which uses the water rich in nutrients from the fish instead of hydroponics, which uses a bunch of chemicals (fertilizer from bottles and powders.) Also, lakes tend to be more stable such as fewer waves, tropical storms, or hurricanes. We have so many lakes all over the continent. Why grow fresh water veggies in a salt water location? AND… another point is accessibility. Cities usually are formed alongside a reliable source of water; rivers/lakes. Supplying to these neighboring cities is where the harvested electricity would be best utilized. To reach less choppy seas, you have to travel further out, whereas on a lake, you can often reach it by canoe and other small water craft. Its a good concept, but hydroponics has a nasty little secret, ie chemicals, and the sea is only on the exterior coastal border, and not all countries have ocean access. Just something to think about…

  • Alexander Karl

    This system isn't sustainable. The fish – nets are on open water, so their excrements falls down to the sea floor and destroys the local flora. And hydroponic planting needs a lot of fertilizers, mostly chemical due to the price. The solar on the roof reduce the maximum sun light going to the plants at least by 50%. So the plants are growing slower or need a lot of additional electric lightning.