"it has been proven", "research says", and "studies show" are all amazing phrases but I'd like to be able to see the papers linked in the description or somewhere else. For a channel dedicated to science, it's surprising how little attention you guys give to the sources
cyberfloater we can literally use our current infrastructure and we get more nutrients via spraying or fish remains. Literally, stop misinforming people and being pessimistic. If you have a better idea go right ahead...
@@juankplaysmusic If you had working welfare like a civilised place, that wouldn't be a problem. And no the unemployment of a literal few families shouldn't go ahead of the wellbeing of the *entire* planet. If their businesses go bust, get them unemployment benefits like anyone else so they don't have to worry while they work out their next steps
@@juankplaysmusic they will have to adapt. It won't be easy, but it will be much harder to feed 9 billion people with the methods we have now. Also people are becoming richer so the consumption per capita is rising too.
@cyberfloater better than a bunch of fertilizer going to a river and polluting our water supply and killing fish, along with mass famines and inability to grow in some places.
Maybe you can grow some lettuce and other similar crops this way but that will not affect the needs for food in the world. You can't grow wheat, corn, soybeans or rice this way and produce any significant amount. All those crops require a lot more space and those crops are the ones that feed people not lettuce. (I apologise for bad English, it's my second language)
Very true. I saw a great article stating that seeds will need to undergo genetic modification in order to be suitable for this farming style. Maybe one day we can have corn take up vastly less space and nutrients
Current research actually is looking into modifying rice and grain crops to be more suitable for growing in vertical farms. I may be wrong here, but I remember reading an article somewhere saying that a vertical farm company had been successful in trials of growing rice/grains in their vertical farms. I think instead of descrediting this new technology, we should instead be asking, "How can we make it better? How can we improve the system?". I think it's harmful to continue believing that one way (say traditional farming) is the *only* way to grow crops.
That's why you use these methods to grow things like lettuce and open up more arable land for carbohydrates. As time goes on, you improve the technology and can have floating farms near ocean distillation systems. Space won't be an issue once you utilise areas normally unattainable with soil growing.
There's a few things you didn't mention in this video, namely that Vertical farming has yet to show that it can grow calorie dense foods like grains, tubers and root vegetables. Grains are notoriously difficult to grow and be profitable on a small scale, hence why they require such large amounts of land. Trying to grow them indoors on stacked shelves raises questions such as how they are harvested or if growing mediums like soil can be incorporated to assist them. Root vegetables obviously cannot be grown in hydro/aquaponics systems as the edible parts of the plant would quickly rot (go and lave a carrot in an airtight container filled with sterile water for a week and see what happens). So if they were to be grown in a vertical farming system you would need to add soil, adding to the cost and complexity of the system, not to mention you probably couldn't stack so many layers on top of each other due to weight concerns, which would mean you need more floor space to get the same amount of profit. Secondly, Vertical farming still does not address the root cause (pun intended) of agricultural sustainability. As in, it's our modern diets, full of inefficient meat that is causing so much damage in addition to harmful farming practices (overuse of pesticides/herbicides/fungicides, leaving bare soil over winter etc). This is not to mention how many people simply eat too much and throw a substantial portion of their food away. Were people to eat much less meat and/or use more sustainable meats (insect protein is as good as any!) then we would cut down considerably on land and water usage. The third problem is energy. As others have said here, if the area that renewable energy sources take up with solar panels and wind farms is greater than the area that would be used for conventional agriculture then we would have sort of missed the point. Other renewable sources like geothermal power could be useful in some areas but not every country can have access to that. Hydro power can be used, but it comes with it's own set of issues. And then we have nuclear which could quite easily supply the needs of vertical farms, but is faced with stiff opposition from some political groups (groups that would probably be interested in seeing alternative methods of agriculture grow, but not unless the energy needs are met by renewable sources). Fourthly, I would like to address other agricultural practices that have been gaining steam in recent years. Regenerative agriculture has shown success in both producing food while also healing the environment from the harmful practices of the past. It can be used in conjunction with livestock farming, aquaculture and agroforestry among others. There's also small scale permaculture growers, which have yet to show commercial success on a large scale but have been successful in supplementing the diets of local communities. And as mentioned there's agroforestry (also known as 'Food Forests'), Silvopasture, and simply increasing the ability of people to grow their own food. In short, I think that it's false to say that vertical farming is 'THE' future of agriculture. It's one tool in the box, but it's nowhere near the only one and arguably not the biggest. In fact it can be argued that, since it doesn't really encourage sustainable consumption, it's like trying to board up a sinking ship with a piece of cloth.
Thank you for your accurate post. I went down the rabbit hole of vertical farming and hydroponics, but as you mentioned, they have significant cost/energy issues. Fortunately, geo air insulated greenhouses combined with aquaponics has some solutions to these problems (albeit with large upfront costs).
Vertical farming can be so simple that it can even be done at home. I once saw a Video where someone filled a plastic bottle with dirt, cut holes into it and put These kind of onions where you eat the greens into them. They regrow, produce a lot and fit in every small gap, I was amazed!
I've done researches for vertical farms twice in undergraduate studies. The biggest issue for this is the intense resources needed to set up a farm and operate. It's way more complicated to set up and running than a traditional farm on flat land. Also, the efficiency of the farm counteracts by the additional cost on the equipment compared to the conventional farm which doesn't make the price of the produces more competitive.
What if it the only choice available? Can normal farming be done on sand desert without terraforming the land? If possible, farming on arable land that close fresh water source is probably better idea. Altough such land probably already used.
Exactly. Hopefully we can reduce the costs of production, but we are a long way from profitable vertical farms. Innovations in lighting and energy are crucial
@@meferswift for vertical farming, it's best to be done on a flat piece of land and all the crops and equipment best to be in an closed controllable environment. I don't know how to farm in desert without any terraforming at all.
@@meferswift but it's possible to set up a temporary green house in the desert as the minimum possible required material to build an controllable environment.
Wow so many of the comments about how it was everyone's high school project idea. I think when as kids we wanna ideate something related to agriculture this was top of out list.
@cyberfloater Contrary to what you claim, i have heard of tests done with vertical farming wich show that controlling the plants growthfactors like light, water, nutrients, direction of growth and temperature, one can pretty much controll the resulting size and nutricious value of the plant. A test conducted by the german Frauenhofer Institut resulted in more nutricious plants for example.
@@theriddle2273 heck the very cutting edge of the research on vertical farming is looking at soil microbiomes and how to insert them into a vertical set up.
Severals points that weren't discussed in the video : - These methods are, for now, only efficient to grow leafy greens and some fruits/vegetables. These only represent a fraction of the problems discussed about today's agriculture. Grains and plants like soy is the bigger threat, as it is what we use to feed cattle. Vertical farming would become a true solution only when it is able to grow grain as efficiently as regular farming. - The "nutrient rich water" fed to the plants use transformed chemical component that are expensive to make and can be harmful to the environment. Of course Aquapony bypass this problem by creating a nutrient cycle, if the fish are given food that is produced on the farm. Which reduces the overall production of the farm. - There is also a taste problem. There are some feedbacks that soil free vegetable have less taste that regular or organic farms goods. Some compensate this problem by adding more complexity to the nutrient mix, which add more cost to the overall produce. On one end it can be interesting to select what kind a taste the produce will have, on the other end it will further dig the gap between tasty/expensive products and bland/cheep product, whereas the greens where so far excluded from this equation (exept maybe in the US where an apple cost more that a burger) -Some people also pointed out the cost of the final product, which will become cheap enough only with scale economy.
@@danielhlw yep potatoes are poissible you just need a little more space than for lettuce. Potatoes do also grow without soil. Rice and wheat would have to be genetically altered though but thats not to much ofa problem. Wheat as it is found in nature is almost 2m high, we made it the hight it is today ourself so three is no reason why we wouldn't grow it even shorter.
One big hurdle for aeroponics: the nozzles. The nutrients mixed in with the water causes the nozzles to get gunked up and clog over time, meaning you either have to clean or replace them ALL on a regular basis, which is both costly and relatively labor intensive. For anyone saying that plant height is a limiting factor though, there are plenty of techniques to get around that, most plants aren't hard to "train", even a simple mesh/netting at the right age can get the plant into the desired shape/angle.
I've got some mushrooms in a box. It's a kit, and they come ready for watering in the box. All I have to do is keep watering them in their box, and watch them go! Alot easier when i had two planter pots with herbs in xD
@@julie4178 Two years ago I had 12 plants, went on a vacation, and my house sitter just completely ignored them. Last year, I thought I could do better, had about 16-18, and then I neglected them because of my work schedule. This year, let's just get through one healthy plant.
One thing I do for fun just collect seeds from everywhere store bought peppers lemons ect. you go and you can get a lot of plant that would normally be wasted then its nearly natural selection cause the ones that survive the care they receive are tough and the many you lose to poor care teach you what you can do better it's all a learning curve
It would be fantastic to see Vertical farming, cell cultured meat production and other forms of urbanized agriculture eventually replace conventional agriculture altogether. Without the need for millions of square miles of farmland, it would give the planet the additional benefit of mass rewilding. Also farmers would be able to continue their livelihoods in agriculture if they so chose, but in a more comfortable, controlled environment and with higher skilled training.
I feel like someone stole my idea, I thought this was an original idea by me in 1998 for 10th grade project. I said same thing. Future farmable land would be scarce and once the price of an acre of land exceeded the cost of the infrastructure it would take to stack an acre worth of crop space vertically then this shift would take place by economic nessecities
Actually it's quite common, I mean there should have been an idea before just that we didn't have the technology to think about that and just would have been a mere school project thought
I love how they say; "Traditional farming isn't efficient..." but never mention based on what/which metrics... Unless my understanding is wrong, the energy source is the sun... which is free... Hence, you will never be more energetically efficient with the same crop than regular farming... Now, that said, if you look at it from a land utilization perspective, then you might have a point. But the question will always remain: How will you get your energy? (Oh and for those wanting to say "solar", I'll let you think about it for another 30 secs...) What indoor farming give us is: - Improved control over food production - Improved control over food production reliability - Maybe reduced logistic & transportation cost The overall result will be cities that are more self reliant on food but will consume wwwaaaayyyy more energy. Not that I'm against the concept because I want us to become a space fairing civ. But one need to be realistic when presenting the advantages & disadvantages of a certain tech.
I mean i think i get why u said think about solar for a sec but like...solar is actually good because we still using the suns energy? Still unlimited energy? Not only that we can store the energy too
@@samuelshao2688 ; I'm not sure I understand your question so I will answer it in part: Q: Solar is actually good because we still using the suns energy? A: Solar is good because it does not generate green house gas (if you consider it was produced with none hydrocarbon based energy) it is also good in space! Q: Still unlimited energy? A: Yes and no, it depend what you mean by unlimited. There is a max amount of energy the sun is putting out, which mean there is a max amount we can get from it on earth. (it's a HUGE amount though) There is also a limit in time. The sun will hit nova in 5 billion years... Hence, not unlimited in the purest sense of the word but quite enough for our civilization for a long time. (until we need to expend in space) Q: Not only that we can store the energy too? A: I'm not sure about this one... can you clarify it a bit?
@@uhohhotdog yep. And most of the soil nutrient is degraded from saturation rather than plant uptake. And then water is lost because it's and open system. So we would need a closed system to enable water retention and decrease nutrient loss. This is basically money down the drain for farmers. Whether it's traditional or vertical farming there is always room to improve.
I have been telling people for years that ever since we learned how to grow plants in enclosed spaces, wither it was underground or out in space, we no longer have a food shortage problem, but a lack of investment in food production. LED technology was really the hurdle we needed to pass to make food growing financially viable and I am encouraged by the growth in this area, even if it is still too slow for my judgement.
Yes! We need this! Runoff from fertilizers into our lakes is ruining freshwater and turning it into dead zones. Not to mention the harmful mental and physical impacts caused by pesticides. Current farming practices are not sustainable. We need change like this implemented if we want a healthy future.
@@ideclaredwaronyourfrenchas4123 imagine not liking something that could plausibly cut our environmental impact in half, or more, for such petty reasons as "it has estrogen".
@@ideclaredwaronyourfrenchas4123 that would be phytoestrogen what you mean and it's a plant hormone which has no impact on humans. Antibiotics and animal hormones are present in animal carcasses on the other hand.
@@MineRoyale. i do mind because i'm not a soyboy like you and i do keep mind on my gains. Your the type of person who would say "Go live in a pod" "Eat the bugs" Literally incarnation of reddit
So, controversial thought here, but is anyone else considering the fact that the developed world mostly has a stable population and enough food to feed itself several times over, while _certain_ developing areas have rapid population growths and already too little food to feed themselves?
I'll be submitting a proposal to my Uni to build a fully autonomous vertical farm. Thinking about the future makes me excited and I'm glad this is kicking off strong
If vertical farming produces more crops for the space, use the space far efficient, what would be the reasons the method isn't used for producing crops in developed cities like in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, where there is a great demand to food but the space is limiting? Theoretically, it's possible to make a vertical farm on a floor inside a building, where other companies are operating, which sounds pretty great to me.
Cost. Food produced by V farm is more exprnsive to produce. Edit: you can import food from place where farm normally. So at that condition, vertical farming makes little sense. Most cities i know import their food from country side farm.
Please, can anybody tell me where I can get this map in 1:27 ?? I am a video creator and I desperatly need to know where I can get it. I tried many plug ins but none of them is like this map. I'd really appreciate it if somebody helps me with this.
Unfortunately this video isnt very accurate when it comes to lighting. Plants use all types of light and it indicates different grow phases of plants. Common misconception that they only use red/blue light
For the water part most plants are going to feeding cows + other livestock so if we reduced meat consumption then that huge amount of water that goes into agriculture would be reduced massively, giving poorer countries a chance at getting some of the water
How does the cost of a head of lettuce grown in a traditional farm compare to one grown in a vertical farm? The video does a great job of talking about the pros of vertical farms. Would be good to see some discussion of cost as well (not just LED cost but also the racks, infrastructure, manual labor, etc).
Meat, milk and milk products should not be subsidized, and should cost much more. Vertical farming isn’t going to solve problems. Grains can’t be grown in vertical farming
More than likely I think that would be the case. Unless we find a better medium than hydro or aeroponics systems that can support those plants specifically. But at this point it would just be speculation to say whether or not it COULD be possible to do it effectively or efficiently
This is great, but what I’m concerned about is if this can be reproduced for different crops like sweet potatoes, rice, maize, and wheat as well as fruit trees.
trees are difficult because of their root structure. but a parking garage like a stack of farmland would already be kilometres better then what we currently have.... if you can compensate for the building construction itself because that is a big oof.
This a very light analysis on vertical farming and requires a much deeper understanding of our food systems. I don't know what other types of content you produce usually, but you should probably stick to what you know, or change the title to a question and do some thorough research on the topic before presenting.
I am very curious about the feasibility of this whole thing. Obviously the technology is getting cheaper over time, and the benefits of growing food conventionally are waning, so there will come a day when it will be beneficial for almost all farms to transition to vertical farms. When might this day come? When will the benefits outweigh the cost? And how big of an impact will this have on the way we eat? Maybe you could explain in a future video? :) Btw great video
When there is no more arable land and normal farming has reached its peak efficiency while demand for food keep increasing. Edit: no more arable land that hasn't turn to farm.
The majority of the worldwide crops are for the consumption of the animals. Animals who live a miserable life and who end being butchered. Their life is much worse than any horror movie.
you forgot to mention a few additional things... Firstly, you won't need massive farming facilities for this. Farm can be just a small part of the city. And can be stacked above for further production/profit for an investor. When you're using Artificial light, You can start the building from 5-10 stories tall and bump it to 20-40 stories as long as you can manage the required logistics and communication. Thus you can depopulate the sparsely populated areas to give the land back to nature and also decentralize/reduce dependency of the cities from one to another.
Lots of wishful thinking. LED bulbs to replace the sun: Expensive Power to run the LEDs: Expensive Massive building: Expensive Racks: Expensive Watering systems: Expensive Environmental controls: Expensive
I agree with you. This is just some dream of human hubris. Assuming it can be completely separate from economic realities, sure we can use it to feed 0.01% of the world's population. Not only that, but surely there will be negatives that we don't know of yet that are worse in indoor environments.
@@danielmejia8814 Why? Food grown this way will cost more than food grown using more traditional methods. Which would you purchase, given the choice? A $10 head of lettuce grown using "real progress", or a $1 head of lettuce grown the traditional way?
Uhohhotdog Gaming being done without profit. Investors are very hopeful and love to throw money at innovative ideas. However, if the idea is really viable or not has yet to be proven
UN says we are currently producing enough food to feed 10 billion, the issue is food preservation and getting the food to everyone efficiently. I cant see the population rising too much, will probably stabilise soon.
Using water for crops isn't bad, it feeds the plants and go back into the cycle again, so nothing is lost, plus plants are natural so nothing but benefits from growing crops
I don't think we'll need this any time soon. That fact that we eat as much meat as we do means that we aren't really close to capacity since meat is not an efficient source of food. If we need more food, we'll just eat less meat and use the freed up space for normal crops
Why should I change my eating habits because of the fast reproducing asians? How about we greatly reduce our global population so that we can all live better?
unfortunately I just don't see meat consumption ever dropping without a truly massive crisis. Being able to afford meat more often is often seen as an indicator of domestic progress and success in developing countries (look at stats on chinese pork consumption since 1980), so that side of consumption is likely only to go up. It might go down a bit in developed countries though, but there are way too many people (especially in america) who like meat too much to drop it down appreciably imo. Now, if we can continue improving and reducing the price of lab grown meat, that might be a solution a lot more people would accept.
@@warwolf6862 Your CO2 emissions are are probably 10 times higher than someone in the developing world. The problem is in the west the CO2 per capital is enormous. It would be incredibly rich to tell someone in the developing world "hey, start using less eclectically and have fewer kids as I don't want to be inconvenienced by having to eat less meat in my diet".
Comparing Earth to Bike, human evolution made one wheel so loose that we are on edge of collapse so our fall is deemed but we will always try to get back up as we all have learnt. But a fall is necessary to understand the pain without it corporate greed will never stop
And why fall if you can stop, take a look at the bike, repare the wheel and keep going strong instead of just saying "oh well, the fall will make me stronger"
it's great how RLL2 doesn't mention that vertical farming can *only* grow leafy greens nowadays, not tall grasses (such as rice & wheat) nor fruit bearing trees.
rice isn't that terribly tall and already grows in water. it should honestly be quite easy to do. its probably just cheaper to do it in china. as for trees. well no not yet because well... they are trees. those shits grow through concrete and brake it open. but that is just early tech problems. dutch greenhouses grow that shit all year long already we just need a tiny bit more tech to make it stackable.
@@profwaldone the problem is that vertical farm developers still don't know how to adapt this technology for plants that aren't small leafy greens. what is the best bandwidth of light? how can they lower the height of the plant, so it stacks the best & minimal space is lost between levels? what's the best quantity of CO2 for it to grow faster? [in the case of leafy greens, it's 3x more CO2 than our atmosphere has].
@@profwaldone the YT channel Exa Cognition has a great 3-parter series on the current state of vertical farms & its future, including all those questions I've asked in my former comment to yours.
The whole theoretical advantage of vertical farming is that you can grow the food locally and not have to transport it to market, but in a world where a one bedroom apartment cost $2000 a month in most relevant cities I fail to see how this method is economical. Unless you are going to put these vertical farms in the middle of no where, in which case what's the point?
Increasing production? Assuming arable land is a fixed number, then vertical farming is more or less the way to increase production. And yes they can make vertical farming on place where it kind of imposible to grow normaly. And whole theoretical advantage of V farming is you can grow food without arable land area.
They can be placed underground, on brown land, industrial areas, unused carparks, under flyovers and on top of commercial buildings where structurally viable, schools, universities, hospitals, care homes, airports, prisons, sea ports and anywhere where there is dense population of consumers.
There is a lot wrong with this video. Aquaponics is the best way i have tested so far. Yes, we tried vertical farming for 6 months then ditched the idea. (strawberries and lettuce were used) I like a nice grilled fish with my salad and will not be looking back.
@@soarer282 well have you tried doing aquaponic on barren land that are partially desert? I tried aquaponic on a fertile soil on tropical island with lots of fresh water. It work good indeed. Im from SEA btw
@@clarencevaz1107 I'm a geologist and I don't think it's a bad idea. The problem is that vertical farming is not super practical for the average person- it requires a lot of water and artificial light. However, indoor herb and vegetable gardens grown conventionally, as well as outdoor gardens could certainly help with CO2. Another thing that could help is to plant more trees, have more indoor plants in general, and to let weeds in your yard grow freely, as most help the soil and are good for a healthy ecosystem.
You can. I know tones of people who do it and they make so much money back. They spent that money on solar and more trays/seeds/lights and they got lots of money, it’s a great feedback loop
1. The amount of land under cultivation or actively pastured is actually going down 2. Water is not harmed, destroyed or "consumed" by any agricultural project 3. No electrical light can be cheaper that the light falling out of the sky 4. Half of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste
There is a lot of land left, I live in São Paulo (state), and when you leave the capital and go inland (2 hours of travel) there is only grass and grass and it is a place with 44 million inhabitants and there is a lot of empty land
@@giovannirodriguesdasilva646 Just because there is land left, doesn't mean we must exploit it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the poorer farmers in Brazil and other countries around the Amazon rainforest clear-cut the forests? That isn't sustainable. Converting land to agriculture is harmful to the ecosystem as a whole. And its not like once they deplete the land, they go back and return it to the forest. They just leave the area and move on to the next plot.
Yeah vertical farming is the major source of food for poor and middle income people . While organic farming is for the rich / high class people in near future
I believe this is correct. However, it must be through vertical aquaponics. Plain soil farming and simple hydroponics also use way too much water, whether vertical or not. Even aeroponics uses too much water in the long run and causes too much root growth and not enough fruit or leaf growth. Vertical aquaponics farms need to be the future of agriculture. And while we will still likely still use grow lights, we still need to use some regular sun light with these systems as well. It will save some energy too.
Aquaponics may use a bunch of water in the beginning, but if set up right, will actually use much less water in the long run because it can recirculate the same water over and over for far, far longer.
To claim vertical farming uses less CO2 without considering: 1. The amount of carbon produced powering the lights 2. The carbon emitted when we convert massive areas of the countryside into skyscrapers, which uses concrete. What about the mining and transportation of all that material? (Cement production and use itself accounts for 8% of CO2 production globally!!!!!!) 3. The heating of the buildings 4. The maintenance cost of these buildings... is stupid.
not really. I honestly think that spread over the lifetime of the structure construction based CO2 is negligible vs the constant truck usage. another thing to consider is simply if we can quadruple output per m2, we can split the land used by 4. which means that saved land can become new parks or nature reserves or even just regular forrest.
Fun fact for you - if the amount of land used to grow corn for biofuels in the US was converted to land for solar panels, the US would have 4x as much electricity as it currently consumes! Farming uses a insane amount of land that can be used much more efficiently Source: @t
@@profwaldone I understand it intuitively feels like transporting the food on trucks provides more CO2, but this isn't the case. Have a look here: insideclimatenews.org/news/28062018/global-warming-pollution-industrial-sources-cement-steel-trade-solutions-technology-shipping Emissions from cement are 4 times higher globally than for "long distance road transport" aka trucking. Farms cover so much land mass, in the video it said globally an area of south america is used for farming. Even being 4 times more efficient, that is a fucking HUGE area we now convert to factories. It would be way more that all the current urban area in the world, so the CO2 impact of all that cement would be MASSIVE. It is large with the limited building we are doing now, how big would it be if we additionally converted 1/4 of south america into a super city! Maybe in hundreds of years the CO2 would cancel out if we reforested 3/4 of the farmlands, but there would be a massive CO2 release in the meantime making it very hard to control global temperatures. To ignore it as a factor is very bad!
@@meya7120 I agree that biofuels might not be a good use of land mass for energy production. I'm sure the per m^2 power production of a nuclear plant would be much higher too! The question here is how to best grow the food we need. We can't eat electricity.
I'm actually a little surprised this hasn't become the norm. The layout is just like a store with shelves or a storage company with lift vans/vaults, as well as the fact that building up has been the most sensible solution to city building for 100 years now.
>We need to double our food production, to feed 9 billion people Except... We already *can* feed 9 billion people. We actually produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. The problem is not the food shortage - the problem is the distribution of food. In the US alone every year about 40% of prodused food is left not eaten my anyone, while at the same time about 11% of American households suffer from food insecurity. Better farming technology will not save people from starving - stopping selling food for profit will.
I think many viewers would be interested in also knowing: (1) what is the spectrum of crops that can be grown via vertical farming--or is it that we can't use this technology with, say, tree orchards or major starch staples?; and, (2) would greater control over infestations--from insects to molds--be another advantage of vertical farming?; and, (3) since there can be vertical farming synergy between crops and fish as one option, would it be possible to reinvigorate our declining honeybee population through synergy with flowering plants within the protected environment of big building complexes?; and, (4) could vertical farming provide hope for economically depressed communities with lots of boarded up buildings--like empty shopping mall, idle factores, and former warehouses--or is it the case that such structures are unuseable for vertical farming? Please do the research and make a follow-up video.
This video failed to state that this vertical farm in New Jersey cost 39 MILLION DOLLARS for what amounted to less than two acres of farmland. Contrasting with the average cost of $8000 for 1 acre of farmland in Iowa. Their head is in the right place, but it’s sad to say that most of these environmentally conscious measures are reserved for the privileged. The average working family does not buy expensive groceries for the sake of the planet, they would rather buy cheap products for the sake of their family. I’m not saying that we should continue to be environmentally destructive, but we should be aware of how economics halt progress.
I saw the Titel and thought in my head it would say "Why Vertical Farming is NOT the Future of Food" and was kinda irritated but now i looked at the title again and feel kinda dumb
The thing about warehouse farms it that they are great for crops like lettuce, but they aren’t practical for mass production crops like corn, wheat, etc.
Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. The countries struggling with food supply are in no position to afford vertical farming any time soon. In order to combat climate change and preserve fossil resources the energy required for vertical farming will have to be produced sustainable and solar and wind farms use lot's of space as well. I think the real solution is industrializing underdeveloped agricultural production, better crops (GMO) and slowing down the increase in meat consumption.
If I had the money to start one, I'd do it in a big city, offer daily tours for publicity (and education, because the local schools would probably want to visit), and sell the produce at the warehouse door. Maybe even offer sample-packs to the tour groups.
Even with the restricted spectrum of light used in this you still need close to 80% efficiency in solar panels and the square surface increase due to vertical stacking makes this approach useful in niche places only. It increases quality and availability of food but is not energy efficient without a nuclear plant.
"it has been proven", "research says", and "studies show" are all amazing phrases but I'd like to be able to see the papers linked in the description or somewhere else. For a channel dedicated to science, it's surprising how little attention you guys give to the sources
Fun information channel doesn't cite sources, hmmmm
ah amazing, then let's spread misinformation!
Yeah I'm awfully;y curious about the maths behind the energy requirements. Sunlight is pretty cheap.
m.ua-cam.com/video/ISAKc9gpGjw/v-deo.html
I did some researches on hydroponics systems. If you guys are interested, I can sent the links.
This is basically my underground minecraft wheet farm.
billy andrews oh yeah 😎
Remind me of my concrete wheat skyscraper
My vertical sugarcane farm in Minecraft says the same
*wheat
Based wheat farm
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet farm
They better use Skillshare or the vertical farming project is a failure.
download the chrome add-on sponsorblock
It works like adblock, but for sponsor spots in the video by skipping over it.
It is what it is
@@brianfong5711 Thx m8
@@schlingelschlingeling4059 no prob, spread the word!
a n i m e
n
i
m
e
Imagine just a tower which all of its purpose is just farming
Tf I how do i have almost 300 for this
robbie commie Minecraft
MAny science fiction writers already did. It wasn´t science fiction though, but a glimpse of Cabal/Elite/DeepState plans.
cyberfloater ok
cyberfloater we can literally use our current infrastructure and we get more nutrients via spraying or fish remains. Literally, stop misinforming people and being pessimistic. If you have a better idea go right ahead...
J.C Rodríguez STFU, deepstate my ass, this is the best thing to happen to the public with open and community centers farming 🙄
People be talking about vertical farming but in 3030, farming is going to be diagonal
i laughed more than I should have
they should try Australian style
Humanity won’t exist by then
Already been done for millennia: terraced farming.
in 4040 its gonna be a vertical line going into the 4th dimension
You can sum this entire video up in a single sentence: 3D has more space to grow crops than 2D.
It also has the ability to KILL all traditional farmers and their families. Very cool right?
@@juankplaysmusic If you had working welfare like a civilised place, that wouldn't be a problem. And no the unemployment of a literal few families shouldn't go ahead of the wellbeing of the *entire* planet. If their businesses go bust, get them unemployment benefits like anyone else so they don't have to worry while they work out their next steps
@@juankplaysmusic they will have to adapt. It won't be easy, but it will be much harder to feed 9 billion people with the methods we have now. Also people are becoming richer so the consumption per capita is rising too.
@cyberfloater better than a bunch of fertilizer going to a river and polluting our water supply and killing fish, along with mass famines and inability to grow in some places.
@@juankplaysmusic dey turk awr jawbz raaaarg
Maybe you can grow some lettuce and other similar crops this way but that will not affect the needs for food in the world. You can't grow wheat, corn, soybeans or rice this way and produce any significant amount. All those crops require a lot more space and those crops are the ones that feed people not lettuce. (I apologise for bad English, it's my second language)
Very true. I saw a great article stating that seeds will need to undergo genetic modification in order to be suitable for this farming style. Maybe one day we can have corn take up vastly less space and nutrients
You are 100% right but they mostly don't feed people. They feed the animals we eat.
Thst would take genetically modified food which is a no no
Current research actually is looking into modifying rice and grain crops to be more suitable for growing in vertical farms. I may be wrong here, but I remember reading an article somewhere saying that a vertical farm company had been successful in trials of growing rice/grains in their vertical farms.
I think instead of descrediting this new technology, we should instead be asking, "How can we make it better? How can we improve the system?". I think it's harmful to continue believing that one way (say traditional farming) is the *only* way to grow crops.
That's why you use these methods to grow things like lettuce and open up more arable land for carbohydrates. As time goes on, you improve the technology and can have floating farms near ocean distillation systems. Space won't be an issue once you utilise areas normally unattainable with soil growing.
There's a few things you didn't mention in this video, namely that Vertical farming has yet to show that it can grow calorie dense foods like grains, tubers and root vegetables. Grains are notoriously difficult to grow and be profitable on a small scale, hence why they require such large amounts of land. Trying to grow them indoors on stacked shelves raises questions such as how they are harvested or if growing mediums like soil can be incorporated to assist them. Root vegetables obviously cannot be grown in hydro/aquaponics systems as the edible parts of the plant would quickly rot (go and lave a carrot in an airtight container filled with sterile water for a week and see what happens). So if they were to be grown in a vertical farming system you would need to add soil, adding to the cost and complexity of the system, not to mention you probably couldn't stack so many layers on top of each other due to weight concerns, which would mean you need more floor space to get the same amount of profit.
Secondly, Vertical farming still does not address the root cause (pun intended) of agricultural sustainability. As in, it's our modern diets, full of inefficient meat that is causing so much damage in addition to harmful farming practices (overuse of pesticides/herbicides/fungicides, leaving bare soil over winter etc). This is not to mention how many people simply eat too much and throw a substantial portion of their food away. Were people to eat much less meat and/or use more sustainable meats (insect protein is as good as any!) then we would cut down considerably on land and water usage.
The third problem is energy. As others have said here, if the area that renewable energy sources take up with solar panels and wind farms is greater than the area that would be used for conventional agriculture then we would have sort of missed the point. Other renewable sources like geothermal power could be useful in some areas but not every country can have access to that. Hydro power can be used, but it comes with it's own set of issues. And then we have nuclear which could quite easily supply the needs of vertical farms, but is faced with stiff opposition from some political groups (groups that would probably be interested in seeing alternative methods of agriculture grow, but not unless the energy needs are met by renewable sources).
Fourthly, I would like to address other agricultural practices that have been gaining steam in recent years. Regenerative agriculture has shown success in both producing food while also healing the environment from the harmful practices of the past. It can be used in conjunction with livestock farming, aquaculture and agroforestry among others. There's also small scale permaculture growers, which have yet to show commercial success on a large scale but have been successful in supplementing the diets of local communities. And as mentioned there's agroforestry (also known as 'Food Forests'), Silvopasture, and simply increasing the ability of people to grow their own food.
In short, I think that it's false to say that vertical farming is 'THE' future of agriculture. It's one tool in the box, but it's nowhere near the only one and arguably not the biggest. In fact it can be argued that, since it doesn't really encourage sustainable consumption, it's like trying to board up a sinking ship with a piece of cloth.
MY HERO 😍 Honestly got to learn a lot from your comment 👍
You could honestly be a pop sci blogger 😬 (Have rarely seen such a useful comment on YT 😂)
As far as hydroponics go I believe they have chemicals and stuff that stop them from rotting, but I could be wrong
Hydroponic potatoes and carrots definitely do exist. Search it on google
I won't eat bugs
Thank you for your accurate post. I went down the rabbit hole of vertical farming and hydroponics, but as you mentioned, they have significant cost/energy issues.
Fortunately, geo air insulated greenhouses combined with aquaponics has some solutions to these problems (albeit with large upfront costs).
"Vertical Farming"
every Hermit's goal
Are you a Hermitcraft fan?
Hey, Hermitcraft reference!
Reality Engineering copied Minecraft Builders
thas what mumbo did in s6 lol
Ehhhh were my grian fabs at
I use to make model of vertical farming in my middle school science fair , good to see a progress in that :)
Vertical farming can be so simple that it can even be done at home. I once saw a Video where someone filled a plastic bottle with dirt, cut holes into it and put These kind of onions where you eat the greens into them. They regrow, produce a lot and fit in every small gap, I was amazed!
Y33T
That’s what I did
It was a very fun project! We got to built our own systems for a class. My high school funded that engineering course.
you mean at minecraft
I made artificial clay.
I've done researches for vertical farms twice in undergraduate studies. The biggest issue for this is the intense resources needed to set up a farm and operate. It's way more complicated to set up and running than a traditional farm on flat land. Also, the efficiency of the farm counteracts by the additional cost on the equipment compared to the conventional farm which doesn't make the price of the produces more competitive.
What if it the only choice available?
Can normal farming be done on sand desert without terraforming the land? If possible, farming on arable land that close fresh water source is probably better idea. Altough such land probably already used.
Exactly. Hopefully we can reduce the costs of production, but we are a long way from profitable vertical farms. Innovations in lighting and energy are crucial
One of the few sensible comments here.
@@meferswift for vertical farming, it's best to be done on a flat piece of land and all the crops and equipment best to be in an closed controllable environment. I don't know how to farm in desert without any terraforming at all.
@@meferswift but it's possible to set up a temporary green house in the desert as the minimum possible required material to build an controllable environment.
I thought this was about vertical integration within farming at first XD.
Real life lore promoting the next multi level marketing scheme, now including plants
Vertical Integration caused a large chunk of this mess. Bigger isn't always better
Can I farm you?
You are now a real potato man
Vertical integration is basically the devil
Wow so many of the comments about how it was everyone's high school project idea. I think when as kids we wanna ideate something related to agriculture this was top of out list.
I’m surprised nobody is talking about how this can save the environment if it becomes mainstream
My class actually got to design and built these systems. We grew basils and tomatoes.
@cyberfloater Contrary to what you claim, i have heard of tests done with vertical farming wich show that controlling the plants growthfactors like light, water, nutrients, direction of growth and temperature, one can pretty much controll the resulting size and nutricious value of the plant. A test conducted by the german Frauenhofer Institut resulted in more nutricious plants for example.
@@theriddle2273 heck the very cutting edge of the research on vertical farming is looking at soil microbiomes and how to insert them into a vertical set up.
Severals points that weren't discussed in the video :
- These methods are, for now, only efficient to grow leafy greens and some fruits/vegetables. These only represent a fraction of the problems discussed about today's agriculture. Grains and plants like soy is the bigger threat, as it is what we use to feed cattle. Vertical farming would become a true solution only when it is able to grow grain as efficiently as regular farming.
- The "nutrient rich water" fed to the plants use transformed chemical component that are expensive to make and can be harmful to the environment. Of course Aquapony bypass this problem by creating a nutrient cycle, if the fish are given food that is produced on the farm. Which reduces the overall production of the farm.
- There is also a taste problem. There are some feedbacks that soil free vegetable have less taste that regular or organic farms goods. Some compensate this problem by adding more complexity to the nutrient mix, which add more cost to the overall produce. On one end it can be interesting to select what kind a taste the produce will have, on the other end it will further dig the gap between tasty/expensive products and bland/cheep product, whereas the greens where so far excluded from this equation (exept maybe in the US where an apple cost more that a burger)
-Some people also pointed out the cost of the final product, which will become cheap enough only with scale economy.
So?
@@davidgumazon So they can't be "the future of food" if they don't tackle those problems
David Gumazon your a brainlet that can’t fathom that the cost outweighs the benefits
Can I have the source/reference for the taste problem?
None of these vertical farming systems produce crops like wheat or potatoes. Doesn't rice grow in water and could it work in hydroponics?
Dude, one step at a time.
@@mbogucki1 omg i love this reply
Actually you can grow almost anything in hydroponics or aeroponics, you can def grow potatoes as of your comment.
@@danielhlw
Rice rice??
@@danielhlw yep potatoes are poissible you just need a little more space than for lettuce. Potatoes do also grow without soil. Rice and wheat would have to be genetically altered though but thats not to much ofa problem. Wheat as it is found in nature is almost 2m high, we made it the hight it is today ourself so three is no reason why we wouldn't grow it even shorter.
One big hurdle for aeroponics: the nozzles.
The nutrients mixed in with the water causes the nozzles to get gunked up and clog over time, meaning you either have to clean or replace them ALL on a regular basis, which is both costly and relatively labor intensive.
For anyone saying that plant height is a limiting factor though, there are plenty of techniques to get around that, most plants aren't hard to "train", even a simple mesh/netting at the right age can get the plant into the desired shape/angle.
agroforestation is the key like syntropic farming
Meanwhile, I'm so bad at gardening that I only planted one single plant this year, so it can have my full attention. If it dies, I give up.
I've got some mushrooms in a box. It's a kit, and they come ready for watering in the box. All I have to do is keep watering them in their box, and watch them go! Alot easier when i had two planter pots with herbs in xD
@@julie4178 Two years ago I had 12 plants, went on a vacation, and my house sitter just completely ignored them. Last year, I thought I could do better, had about 16-18, and then I neglected them because of my work schedule. This year, let's just get through one healthy plant.
You should consider cactuses
One thing I do for fun just collect seeds from everywhere store bought peppers lemons ect. you go and you can get a lot of plant that would normally be wasted then its nearly natural selection cause the ones that survive the care they receive are tough and the many you lose to poor care teach you what you can do better it's all a learning curve
I remember my dad actually did a hydroponics experiment in his bedroom and it worked really good
"I'm a farmer" is going to have whole different meaning in the future.
Agricultural scientist, engineer or doctor.
Would like to see like that.
Then education system comes to earn money.
“I’m a vertical farmer”
It would be fantastic to see Vertical farming, cell cultured meat production and other forms of urbanized agriculture eventually replace conventional agriculture altogether. Without the need for millions of square miles of farmland, it would give the planet the additional benefit of mass rewilding. Also farmers would be able to continue their livelihoods in agriculture if they so chose, but in a more comfortable, controlled environment and with higher skilled training.
Oh so that’s why farming simulator 2021 was delayed
Vertical farming simulator 2023 is coming up next
I feel like someone stole my idea, I thought this was an original idea by me in 1998 for 10th grade project. I said same thing. Future farmable land would be scarce and once the price of an acre of land exceeded the cost of the infrastructure it would take to stack an acre worth of crop space vertically then this shift would take place by economic nessecities
Actually it's quite common, I mean there should have been an idea before just that we didn't have the technology to think about that and just would have been a mere school project thought
The idea has been around for a very long time. The thing that's changing and making it more common is the economics.
I love how they say; "Traditional farming isn't efficient..." but never mention based on what/which metrics...
Unless my understanding is wrong, the energy source is the sun... which is free...
Hence, you will never be more energetically efficient with the same crop than regular farming...
Now, that said, if you look at it from a land utilization perspective, then you might have a point.
But the question will always remain: How will you get your energy?
(Oh and for those wanting to say "solar", I'll let you think about it for another 30 secs...)
What indoor farming give us is:
- Improved control over food production
- Improved control over food production reliability
- Maybe reduced logistic & transportation cost
The overall result will be cities that are more self reliant on food but will consume wwwaaaayyyy more energy.
Not that I'm against the concept because I want us to become a space fairing civ.
But one need to be realistic when presenting the advantages & disadvantages of a certain tech.
I mean i think i get why u said think about solar for a sec but like...solar is actually good because we still using the suns energy? Still unlimited energy? Not only that we can store the energy too
@@samuelshao2688 ; I'm not sure I understand your question so I will answer it in part:
Q: Solar is actually good because we still using the suns energy?
A: Solar is good because it does not generate green house gas (if you consider it was produced with none hydrocarbon based energy)
it is also good in space!
Q: Still unlimited energy?
A: Yes and no, it depend what you mean by unlimited. There is a max amount of energy the sun is putting out, which mean there is a max amount we can get from it on earth. (it's a HUGE amount though) There is also a limit in time. The sun will hit nova in 5 billion years... Hence, not unlimited in the purest sense of the word but quite enough for our civilization for a long time. (until we need to expend in space)
Q: Not only that we can store the energy too?
A: I'm not sure about this one... can you clarify it a bit?
Its also possible to just have a giant vertical farm building that is translucent and has mirrors
It’s not space efficient
@@uhohhotdog yep. And most of the soil nutrient is degraded from saturation rather than plant uptake. And then water is lost because it's and open system. So we would need a closed system to enable water retention and decrease nutrient loss. This is basically money down the drain for farmers. Whether it's traditional or vertical farming there is always room to improve.
I have been telling people for years that ever since we learned how to grow plants in enclosed spaces, wither it was underground or out in space, we no longer have a food shortage problem, but a lack of investment in food production. LED technology was really the hurdle we needed to pass to make food growing financially viable and I am encouraged by the growth in this area, even if it is still too slow for my judgement.
Ibxtoycat’s sugarcane farm:
Finally my time has come
Yes! We need this! Runoff from fertilizers into our lakes is ruining freshwater and turning it into dead zones. Not to mention the harmful mental and physical impacts caused by pesticides. Current farming practices are not sustainable. We need change like this implemented if we want a healthy future.
This and lab grown meat will really change food forever
Enjoy your lab meats, i'm sticking with aquaponics while I have a garden.
Noy Telinú imagine liking “synthetic meat” filled with estrogens and probably of soy and insect substitute
@@ideclaredwaronyourfrenchas4123 imagine not liking something that could plausibly cut our environmental impact in half, or more, for such petty reasons as "it has estrogen".
@@ideclaredwaronyourfrenchas4123 that would be phytoestrogen what you mean and it's a plant hormone which has no impact on humans. Antibiotics and animal hormones are present in animal carcasses on the other hand.
@@MineRoyale. i do mind because i'm not a soyboy like you and i do keep mind on my gains.
Your the type of person who would say
"Go live in a pod"
"Eat the bugs"
Literally incarnation of reddit
So, controversial thought here, but is anyone else considering the fact that the developed world mostly has a stable population and enough food to feed itself several times over, while _certain_ developing areas have rapid population growths and already too little food to feed themselves?
Yeah alot of people considers it
I can’t wait to see humanity as in futuristic movies
♥️
A future where conservatives are extinct is my kind of future
@@jimboonie9885 Why must you inject politics? You should let people have their own views. You're reinforcing the bad rep of political people.
I can’t wait to start seeing this whenever I visit a city
I've seen those in minecraft!
What?
@@LadyLiberty-c8i He is sayin that you can simulate hydroponic farming in minecraft
@@LadyLiberty-c8i He's saying you can grow vertical farming in Minecraft.
I once made one in Minecraft, good way to save space in your world.
@@argonauts56au1kera6 I made one from bedrock to the height limit in minecraft then trade it all to the villagers
White LED fixtures work ~95% as well as the special red-blue growing lights, but are 97.5% cheaper due to mass production.
I find it crazy how this kind of thing was talked about 10 years ago and only now is it being implemented.
People will believe anything. The sheer volume of space needed to grow, particularly, commodity crops is dumbfounding.
I love these vids, I learn so much information I never needed to know.
Kept making amazing vids
Keep
I'll be submitting a proposal to my Uni to build a fully autonomous vertical farm. Thinking about the future makes me excited and I'm glad this is kicking off strong
If vertical farming produces more crops for the space, use the space far efficient, what would be the reasons the method isn't used for producing crops in developed cities like in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, where there is a great demand to food but the space is limiting? Theoretically, it's possible to make a vertical farm on a floor inside a building, where other companies are operating, which sounds pretty great to me.
Cost. Food produced by V farm is more exprnsive to produce.
Edit: you can import food from place where farm normally. So at that condition, vertical farming makes little sense. Most cities i know import their food from country side farm.
It's just insanely expensive to do so, and while some companies are trying to do so, the upfront cost is not neg liable.
@@meferswift What makes producing crop by vertical farming more expensive? The light or something?
Wow those yield stats are crazy. Glad to see innovation taking place in such a traditional industry
I was instructed to use Skillshare to make better vertical farming.
Well, instructions unclear, now I'm a NASA Engineer.
Make a video about seaweed agriculture and how this will help us to produce food with less land
Please, can anybody tell me where I can get this map in 1:27 ?? I am a video creator and I desperatly need to know where I can get it. I tried many plug ins but none of them is like this map.
I'd really appreciate it if somebody helps me with this.
Seems like zoomed out satelit imagery.
Unfortunately this video isnt very accurate when it comes to lighting. Plants use all types of light and it indicates different grow phases of plants. Common misconception that they only use red/blue light
For the water part most plants are going to feeding cows + other livestock so if we reduced meat consumption then that huge amount of water that goes into agriculture would be reduced massively, giving poorer countries a chance at getting some of the water
How does the cost of a head of lettuce grown in a traditional farm compare to one grown in a vertical farm? The video does a great job of talking about the pros of vertical farms. Would be good to see some discussion of cost as well (not just LED cost but also the racks, infrastructure, manual labor, etc).
Meat, milk and milk products should not be subsidized, and should cost much more. Vertical farming isn’t going to solve problems. Grains can’t be grown in vertical farming
More than likely I think that would be the case. Unless we find a better medium than hydro or aeroponics systems that can support those plants specifically. But at this point it would just be speculation to say whether or not it COULD be possible to do it effectively or efficiently
This is great, but what I’m concerned about is if this can be reproduced for different crops like sweet potatoes, rice, maize, and wheat as well as fruit trees.
trees are difficult because of their root structure. but a parking garage like a stack of farmland would already be kilometres better then what we currently have.... if you can compensate for the building construction itself because that is a big oof.
Man food production will be really futuristic in 30 years when we only eat lab grown meat and when vertical farming is the primary producer of crops.
At 9:30 you reminded me that we could covert tons of abandoned steel mills in the Rustbelt to use for vertical farming!!
Watch people protesting about this lol....
America don't even think about it
This a very light analysis on vertical farming and requires a much deeper understanding of our food systems. I don't know what other types of content you produce usually, but you should probably stick to what you know, or change the title to a question and do some thorough research on the topic before presenting.
The year 3000: Farming in the 4th dimension
DUDE I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!!!
We have Horizontal farming and Vertical farming, but where's Diagonal farming?
www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/Terraced-fields/td-p/1865788 there you go
Ikarim Lol, I know what terraces are. They’re heavily used in South America and mountainous countries in South America such as Peru.
Ikarim Although I have written this statement in a poor context here. But yeah. Love Terraces!
I am very curious about the feasibility of this whole thing. Obviously the technology is getting cheaper over time, and the benefits of growing food conventionally are waning, so there will come a day when it will be beneficial for almost all farms to transition to vertical farms. When might this day come? When will the benefits outweigh the cost? And how big of an impact will this have on the way we eat? Maybe you could explain in a future video? :)
Btw great video
When there is no more arable land and normal farming has reached its peak efficiency while demand for food keep increasing.
Edit: no more arable land that hasn't turn to farm.
The majority of the worldwide crops are for the consumption of the animals. Animals who live a miserable life and who end being butchered. Their life is much worse than any horror movie.
you forgot to mention a few additional things... Firstly, you won't need massive farming facilities for this. Farm can be just a small part of the city. And can be stacked above for further production/profit for an investor. When you're using Artificial light, You can start the building from 5-10 stories tall and bump it to 20-40 stories as long as you can manage the required logistics and communication. Thus you can depopulate the sparsely populated areas to give the land back to nature and also decentralize/reduce dependency of the cities from one to another.
Lots of wishful thinking.
LED bulbs to replace the sun: Expensive
Power to run the LEDs: Expensive
Massive building: Expensive
Racks: Expensive
Watering systems: Expensive
Environmental controls: Expensive
I agree with you. This is just some dream of human hubris. Assuming it can be completely separate from economic realities, sure we can use it to feed 0.01% of the world's population.
Not only that, but surely there will be negatives that we don't know of yet that are worse in indoor environments.
Did you not see the part where it’s already being done?
Sure it's expensive, but it is worth the investment. We can't always let costs impede with real progress
@@danielmejia8814 Why? Food grown this way will cost more than food grown using more traditional methods. Which would you purchase, given the choice? A $10 head of lettuce grown using "real progress", or a $1 head of lettuce grown the traditional way?
Uhohhotdog Gaming being done without profit. Investors are very hopeful and love to throw money at innovative ideas. However, if the idea is really viable or not has yet to be proven
UN says we are currently producing enough food to feed 10 billion, the issue is food preservation and getting the food to everyone efficiently. I cant see the population rising too much, will probably stabilise soon.
I've been watching Real Life Lore for a while. I liked their videos. That is why I decided to create my own Channel. 👍🙂
Have subbed.
Using water for crops isn't bad, it feeds the plants and go back into the cycle again, so nothing is lost, plus plants are natural so nothing but benefits from growing crops
I don't think we'll need this any time soon. That fact that we eat as much meat as we do means that we aren't really close to capacity since meat is not an efficient source of food. If we need more food, we'll just eat less meat and use the freed up space for normal crops
Kaleb Bruwer I can guarantee you people and industries are not going to go along with that
Very interesting to learn how sience improves every time. Great video as always!
If we reduce meat consumption considerably, then there will be much less land required to feed people.
and greatly reduced water consumption
Why should I change my eating habits because of the fast reproducing asians? How about we greatly reduce our global population so that we can all live better?
unfortunately I just don't see meat consumption ever dropping without a truly massive crisis. Being able to afford meat more often is often seen as an indicator of domestic progress and success in developing countries (look at stats on chinese pork consumption since 1980), so that side of consumption is likely only to go up.
It might go down a bit in developed countries though, but there are way too many people (especially in america) who like meat too much to drop it down appreciably imo.
Now, if we can continue improving and reducing the price of lab grown meat, that might be a solution a lot more people would accept.
WarWolf Chinese population is shrinking, and Indian birth rate is 2.4. The same as France
@@warwolf6862 Your CO2 emissions are are probably 10 times higher than someone in the developing world. The problem is in the west the CO2 per capital is enormous.
It would be incredibly rich to tell someone in the developing world "hey, start using less eclectically and have fewer kids as I don't want to be inconvenienced by having to eat less meat in my diet".
Impressive information on farming. Thanks for sharing good information. Keep it up 👍❤️
Comparing Earth to Bike, human evolution made one wheel so loose that we are on edge of collapse so our fall is deemed but we will always try to get back up as we all have learnt.
But a fall is necessary to understand the pain without it corporate greed will never stop
And why fall if you can stop, take a look at the bike, repare the wheel and keep going strong instead of just saying "oh well, the fall will make me stronger"
i'm setting up up a hydroponic garden in my house this month :D
Update when
it's great how RLL2 doesn't mention that vertical farming can *only* grow leafy greens nowadays, not tall grasses (such as rice & wheat) nor fruit bearing trees.
Well, it's this, starvation in 30 years, algae farms, or a combination of everything except the starving part.
rice isn't that terribly tall and already grows in water. it should honestly be quite easy to do. its probably just cheaper to do it in china. as for trees. well no not yet because well... they are trees. those shits grow through concrete and brake it open. but that is just early tech problems. dutch greenhouses grow that shit all year long already we just need a tiny bit more tech to make it stackable.
@@profwaldone the problem is that vertical farm developers still don't know how to adapt this technology for plants that aren't small leafy greens.
what is the best bandwidth of light? how can they lower the height of the plant, so it stacks the best & minimal space is lost between levels? what's the best quantity of CO2 for it to grow faster? [in the case of leafy greens, it's 3x more CO2 than our atmosphere has].
@@profwaldone the YT channel Exa Cognition has a great 3-parter series on the current state of vertical farms & its future, including all those questions I've asked in my former comment to yours.
Thanks for sharing this awesome mini documentary on vertical farming!
The whole theoretical advantage of vertical farming is that you can grow the food locally and not have to transport it to market, but in a world where a one bedroom apartment cost $2000 a month in most relevant cities I fail to see how this method is economical. Unless you are going to put these vertical farms in the middle of no where, in which case what's the point?
Increasing production?
Assuming arable land is a fixed number, then vertical farming is more or less the way to increase production. And yes they can make vertical farming on place where it kind of imposible to grow normaly.
And whole theoretical advantage of V farming is you can grow food without arable land area.
They can be placed underground, on brown land, industrial areas, unused carparks, under flyovers and on top of commercial buildings where structurally viable, schools, universities, hospitals, care homes, airports, prisons, sea ports and anywhere where there is dense population of consumers.
There is a lot wrong with this video.
Aquaponics is the best way i have tested so far.
Yes, we tried vertical farming for 6 months then ditched the idea. (strawberries and lettuce were used)
I like a nice grilled fish with my salad and will not be looking back.
@@soarer282 well have you tried doing aquaponic on barren land that are partially desert?
I tried aquaponic on a fertile soil on tropical island with lots of fresh water. It work good indeed. Im from SEA btw
Land value speculation is a different issue all together...
I remember seeing a short video of a vertical mushroom farm
Why don't we all just put a vertical farm in our house , CO2 emissions will reduce alot.
@@clarencevaz1107 I'm a geologist and I don't think it's a bad idea. The problem is that vertical farming is not super practical for the average person- it requires a lot of water and artificial light. However, indoor herb and vegetable gardens grown conventionally, as well as outdoor gardens could certainly help with CO2. Another thing that could help is to plant more trees, have more indoor plants in general, and to let weeds in your yard grow freely, as most help the soil and are good for a healthy ecosystem.
You can. I know tones of people who do it and they make so much money back. They spent that money on solar and more trays/seeds/lights and they got lots of money, it’s a great feedback loop
1. The amount of land under cultivation or actively pastured is actually going down
2. Water is not harmed, destroyed or "consumed" by any agricultural project
3. No electrical light can be cheaper that the light falling out of the sky
4. Half of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste
Yeah I love future innovation I am a futurelist edit: Yeah that’s a word
Futurist*
I mean... it is a word, but not the one you wanted to use 😂
same, INNOVATION!!!
Can you add sources of the statistics and numbers you use? Would be very interesting to see
If we ate less meat we would need less crops (I do love my burgers tho)
Have one day in the week in which you don't eat any meat at all, you'll do the world a service just by that.
Look at the Savory Institute of cattle grazing. It'll open your eyes.
Less cows more chickens.
@@KENZONIQ Less chicken more fish.
@@forkstaf1918 Less fish more rocks
Also not having to deal with taking care of dirt, bad weeds like tumbleweeds, fires, insects, animals, etc.
Yeah this is good for lettuce and such but what about more carbohydrate rich food? Yeah sorry its not the solution.
There is a lot of land left, I live in São Paulo (state), and when you leave the capital and go inland (2 hours of travel) there is only grass and grass and it is a place with 44 million inhabitants and there is a lot of empty land
@@giovannirodriguesdasilva646 Just because there is land left, doesn't mean we must exploit it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the poorer farmers in Brazil and other countries around the Amazon rainforest clear-cut the forests? That isn't sustainable. Converting land to agriculture is harmful to the ecosystem as a whole. And its not like once they deplete the land, they go back and return it to the forest. They just leave the area and move on to the next plot.
So if you free up all land used for lettuce, it's not a solution because ... You're not growing staple carbs directly?
Already doing this in minecraft with my farms and livestock, very successful.
Yeah vertical farming is the major source of food for poor and middle income people . While organic farming is for the rich / high class people in near future
I believe this is correct. However, it must be through vertical aquaponics. Plain soil farming and simple hydroponics also use way too much water, whether vertical or not. Even aeroponics uses too much water in the long run and causes too much root growth and not enough fruit or leaf growth. Vertical aquaponics farms need to be the future of agriculture. And while we will still likely still use grow lights, we still need to use some regular sun light with these systems as well. It will save some energy too.
Aquaponics may use a bunch of water in the beginning, but if set up right, will actually use much less water in the long run because it can recirculate the same water over and over for far, far longer.
Plus it produces fish meat as well vegetable and fruit crops.
Population now: 7.7 billion
Population in 30 years: 9 billion
RealLifeLore: FoOd PrODuCtioN WiLL HavE TO duObLe
And soon we need to depopulate earth and have places al across the galaxy not kill people but move them
Now do the Alan Savory method of cattle grazing.
To claim vertical farming uses less CO2 without considering:
1. The amount of carbon produced powering the lights
2. The carbon emitted when we convert massive areas of the countryside into skyscrapers, which uses concrete. What about the mining and transportation of all that material? (Cement production and use itself accounts for 8% of CO2 production globally!!!!!!)
3. The heating of the buildings
4. The maintenance cost of these buildings...
is stupid.
not really. I honestly think that spread over the lifetime of the structure construction based CO2 is negligible vs the constant truck usage. another thing to consider is simply if we can quadruple output per m2, we can split the land used by 4. which means that saved land can become new parks or nature reserves or even just regular forrest.
Fun fact for you - if the amount of land used to grow corn for biofuels in the US was converted to land for solar panels, the US would have 4x as much electricity as it currently consumes! Farming uses a insane amount of land that can be used much more efficiently
Source: @t
@@profwaldone I understand it intuitively feels like transporting the food on trucks provides more CO2, but this isn't the case. Have a look here:
insideclimatenews.org/news/28062018/global-warming-pollution-industrial-sources-cement-steel-trade-solutions-technology-shipping
Emissions from cement are 4 times higher globally than for "long distance road transport" aka trucking.
Farms cover so much land mass, in the video it said globally an area of south america is used for farming. Even being 4 times more efficient, that is a fucking HUGE area we now convert to factories. It would be way more that all the current urban area in the world, so the CO2 impact of all that cement would be MASSIVE.
It is large with the limited building we are doing now, how big would it be if we additionally converted 1/4 of south america into a super city!
Maybe in hundreds of years the CO2 would cancel out if we reforested 3/4 of the farmlands, but there would be a massive CO2 release in the meantime making it very hard to control global temperatures. To ignore it as a factor is very bad!
@@meya7120 I agree that biofuels might not be a good use of land mass for energy production. I'm sure the per m^2 power production of a nuclear plant would be much higher too!
The question here is how to best grow the food we need. We can't eat electricity.
Good luck pumping the water up
I'm actually a little surprised this hasn't become the norm. The layout is just like a store with shelves or a storage company with lift vans/vaults, as well as the fact that building up has been the most sensible solution to city building for 100 years now.
This seems like a rare good thing about the future.
>We need to double our food production, to feed 9 billion people
Except... We already *can* feed 9 billion people. We actually produce enough food to feed 10 billion people. The problem is not the food shortage - the problem is the distribution of food. In the US alone every year about 40% of prodused food is left not eaten my anyone, while at the same time about 11% of American households suffer from food insecurity.
Better farming technology will not save people from starving - stopping selling food for profit will.
But better farming technology will incredibly help the environment not how normal farming is doing right now
I think many viewers would be interested in also knowing: (1) what is the spectrum of crops that can be grown via vertical farming--or is it that we can't use this technology with, say, tree orchards or major starch staples?; and, (2) would greater control over infestations--from insects to molds--be another advantage of vertical farming?; and, (3) since there can be vertical farming synergy between crops and fish as one option, would it be possible to reinvigorate our declining honeybee population through synergy with flowering plants within the protected environment of big building complexes?; and, (4) could vertical farming provide hope for economically depressed communities with lots of boarded up buildings--like empty shopping mall, idle factores, and former warehouses--or is it the case that such structures are unuseable for vertical farming? Please do the research and make a follow-up video.
Big trer probably not possible.
This video failed to state that this vertical farm in New Jersey cost 39 MILLION DOLLARS for what amounted to less than two acres of farmland. Contrasting with the average cost of $8000 for 1 acre of farmland in Iowa. Their head is in the right place, but it’s sad to say that most of these environmentally conscious measures are reserved for the privileged. The average working family does not buy expensive groceries for the sake of the planet, they would rather buy cheap products for the sake of their family. I’m not saying that we should continue to be environmentally destructive, but we should be aware of how economics halt progress.
Vertical farming is a scam. I would love to see one turn a profit for the shareholders...
True. Lettuce is a commodity. People want the cheapest price. And presently vertical farms are far from price competitive
Okay, this will provide the lettuce for my burger, but how about the meat and the bun?
I saw the Titel and thought in my head it would say "Why Vertical Farming is NOT the Future of Food" and was kinda irritated but now i looked at the title again and feel kinda dumb
The thing about warehouse farms it that they are great for crops like lettuce, but they aren’t practical for mass production crops like corn, wheat, etc.
Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.
The countries struggling with food supply are in no position to afford vertical farming any time soon.
In order to combat climate change and preserve fossil resources the energy required for vertical farming will have to be produced sustainable and solar and wind farms use lot's of space as well.
I think the real solution is industrializing underdeveloped agricultural production, better crops (GMO) and slowing down the increase in meat consumption.
I only need Minecraft to realize that x'D
you can't run an electric grid on just solar and wind
If I had the money to start one, I'd do it in a big city, offer daily tours for publicity (and education, because the local schools would probably want to visit), and sell the produce at the warehouse door. Maybe even offer sample-packs to the tour groups.
I'm sorry to upset you, but given the fact that lettuce is about 94% water, it is Impossible to make 80kg out of 5 liters
he said it wrongly , but it is written correctly (1 liter per kg of lettuce)
This channel got it's first sponsor! A
Vertical farming
*just like in the simulations*
You are great, I'm a architecture student and making my thesis on this topic. This is really helpful👌
Imagine if we do impossible meat (vegie) based on vertical farms! Slashing those emitions, saving water and feeding everyone!
Even with the restricted spectrum of light used in this you still need close to 80% efficiency in solar panels and the square surface increase due to vertical stacking makes this approach useful in niche places only. It increases quality and availability of food but is not energy efficient without a nuclear plant.