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Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

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Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#31

Post by debt »

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

Also, enetically modified seeds and engineered fertilizer increase yield and decrease time between harvest among other efficiencies.

Seems like that’s the best place to start for improving farming. Make crops that yield more for less.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#32

Post by dragonwriter »

coldcode wrote: post #26
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #2

We already produce too much food.

People all over the world are starving. The correct description is that we produce too much food where it brings profit, but not enough where it keeps people from starving.

No we produce plenty of food, full stop. Starvation is a distribution problem, not a production problem, and most commonly a local distribution problem.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#33

Post by saas_co_de »

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

The other big problem with this story is that they are looking at the retail price in the store and comparing it to a retail price that doesn't include the food distribution system.

Farmers get a ridiculously small percentage of the retail price on food. The price per pound in a store is usually comparable (same order of magnitude) to the wholesale price per ton.

The production cost for this tech is probably at least 10X traditional farming. It makes no sense because we have too much food. The biggest nutritional problem in society is obesity and we burn 1/3 of our corn crop on ethanol and feed a good part of the rest (and soy) to cattle and pigs because there is nothing else to do with it.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#34

Post by GW150914 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #32
coldcode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People all over the world are starving. The correct description is that we produce too much food where it brings profit, but not enough where it keeps people from starving.

No we produce plenty of food, full stop. Starvation is a distribution problem, not a production problem, and most commonly a local distribution problem.

It’s also a not giving a shit problem in many cases. Everyone starving isn’t in a war zone or subject to epic corruption and seizure of goods. Some people starve and go malnourished in the US and other wealthy countries for lack of anyone really caring. A hard problem to hide not giving a shit behind is the kiss of death.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#35

Post by dalbasal »

ggm wrote: post #29
nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

3) Shipping is cheap. No, thats an externality you don't care about. Its not cheap in social consequence terms. hauling food by road from centralized warehouses is a twofold sin. Firstly, its food miles and NO, CO2 and other burdens. Secondly, its why e coli spreads across the USA: too much centralisation of distribution. "cheap" food is actually at root, the problem. It needs to be affordable, but high quality. We'r…

I appreciate the commitment to social consequences, but I think you're mis-estimating.

Shipping is cheap, also in terms of the energy (for example) required to ship too. There are social consequences to using real estate for farming, using artificial lighting and to producing the vegetable factory too.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#36

Post by armenarmen »

coldcode wrote: post #26
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #2

We already produce too much food.

People all over the world are starving. The correct description is that we produce too much food where it brings profit, but not enough where it keeps people from starving.

Sure, at the same time though the number of people starving is down from a billion in the 90's to ~800mm now. Despite the population growing by about 2 billion in that time frame. This is probably the least hungry time in the history of our species

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#37

Post by dalbasal »

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

Good points all. The aesthetic appeal of this sort of indoor farming, and the space-age-ness gives the topic a tendency to over-excitement.

I'd also add (4) Mostly, urban/vertical/cubicle farms produce high quality/price leafy herbs & veg. It's not replacing vast cereal fields. That's a very small portion of agriculture overall, definitely by land use but also by most measures.

All that said, the are real space-age-ish merits to this. It's like a showcase for various technologies, at (small, but still) production scale.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#38

Post by fraudsyndrome »

dragonwriter wrote: post #32
coldcode wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People all over the world are starving. The correct description is that we produce too much food where it brings profit, but not enough where it keeps people from starving.

No we produce plenty of food, full stop. Starvation is a distribution problem, not a production problem, and most commonly a local distribution problem.

knew someone that managed the packaging from the farmers to the large supermarket chains in Australia - they'd literally throw away good food that had the slightest cut/bruise. This stuff went straight into the garbage, not the composting facility or anything.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#39

Post by bryanlarsen »

farwind wrote: post #22
bryanlarsen wrote: post #13

You can buy prime farm land in Saskatchewan for well under $2000 an acre.

If it's anything like Montana and Wyoming, I wouldn't exactly call it prime farm land -- The weather and climate make it particularly hard to consistently turn a profit, and you need to be prepared to weather several years in a row with no reasonable crop.

It's prime for Saskatchewan. Better than Montana or Wyoming land, but not a lot better. It's certainly not Kansas.

As for profits, the 2010s have been very good to Saskatchewan farmers. Decent crops and great prices, especially for lentils.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#40

Post by lightedman »

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

I'm afraid the majority of misunderstanding is coming from you.

So let's break down what vertical farming can really do.

1. Land which is zoned for agricultural purposes in many places where people live is not cheap simply because of development costs (desert, mountains.) Sure the land is cheap, but getting it into a usable state for farming is not. So being able to maximize what you can produce in one area is quite a necessity. To boot, buildings tend to be a little easier to manage when it comes to pest control and waste products.

2. The sun is horribly inefficient, contributes to a huge amount of water waste, and single-layer crop growth is inefficient as well for our growing global population. You're actually better off growing plants with LEDs (and in some cases the crop doesn't need light at all) using harvested solar energy.

3. Shipping is cheap LOCALLY. Try moving anything of any reasonable bulk anywhere more than a few miles and the prices jack up rapidly, plus now you're spewing pollution all over the place transporting things that could've been grown locally in tiny buildings.

"I actually love the idea of hydroponics for another reason entirely: it saves a ton of water."

Not always. Evaporation losses and transpiration/respiration losses are actually greater in some crops when it comes to hydroponics (as an example, a single cannabis plant can blow through gallons of nutrient solution daily in hydro while maybe using half as much in soil or a soil-less medium.) I think you're mixing up hydroponics with vertical farming in various places and really messing up the facts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZTikdxj8AI - Check this out. This is the very building I worked upon in the UK during my stay out there. There are tens like it across the globe feeding starving populations in extremely difficult conditions (growing more than grass.) Vertical does what your traditional agriculture simply cannot do - high-volume production with scarce resources in a tightly-controlled and environmentally-friendly space, in places where such things are generally impossible.

Next place I'm gunning for an installtion - Antarctica.

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