A Growing Solution: Vertical Farming

[txlibdem]

Today's modern petroleum-intensive farming methods have increased food production greatly in the past few decades but at what cost? Agriculture consumes 70% of the fresh water in America and the runoff is polluted with pesticides, herbicides and silt making it unusable and unhealthy. Giant farms collectively consume 20% of the gasoline and diesel used in America. Current farming methods leave the crops vulnerable to the weather, to pests and potential contamination. Now we are facing peak oil and worldwide (clean) water shortages at the same time that an increasing global population is striving to duplicate the American diet and lifestyle. One of these days those three factors are going to collide and the results won't be pretty.

In the (worst IMO) Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, the girdle-wearing, toupee'd captain bests his genetically enhanced foe because Khan was using "2-dimensional thinking." Never mind the idiocy of the premise, it serves to point out the best solution to providing food for the growing urban populations of the world: grow up!

It almost seems childishly simple. We have only so much land that is suitable for farming, and that number has been decreasing steadily due to the ever-expanding suburbs and bad soil management practices. Add to that the coming water crisis thanks to global climate change plus ever greater numbers of people in urban areas aspiring to western dietary habits. By 2050 an additional 3 billion people are going to be on the planet, requiring additional farmland the size of Brazil. The problem? We don't have any more land to spare. What are we to do? The solution couples two concepts: vertical farming and hydroponics.

Most hydroponic growing is done in greenhouses which provides protection from pests and allows control of environmental variables such as temperature and weather as well as precisely controlling nutrient levels to achieve maximum crop yield. Greenhouse growing blocks most pests from attacking the plants, so usually no pesticides are needed. While more expensive than dirt farming, hydroponics produces far higher yields per acre even in a standard greenhouse setting: up to 40 times the yield per acre, which makes up for the cost difference. And hydroponic growing methods use only 5% of the water of dirt farming. Filtering and UV sterilization of the water and nutrient solution eliminates the danger of E-coli contamination that is always present in field grown crops. All these benefits are from what I call standard greenhouse growing practices where a single layer of crops are grown inside the greenhouse. What happens when you add multiple layers for growing those same crops? Provided adequate light you could multiply your yield geometrically. Now why didn't I think of that?

Wheat grows to about 3' in height so why use all 20+ feet of vertical space in a greenhouse for it? Strawberry plants are usually 18" or so in height. Lettuce never exceeds 12" in height (romaine) and leaf lettuce is even shorter. Yet these are grown in greenhouses where the roof reaches 20 to 30 feet above the growing beds. There is definitely room to increase yields by adding layers on top of each other. Not to mention that in winter you're heating that entire 20 cubic foot volume inside the greenhouse but only "using" a small portion of it for the plants themselves.

Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University, has been championing the idea of bringing the farm into urban areas by building a 50-story vertical farm which, having a 1 acre footprint, can feed 50,000 people a year by growing fruits and vegetables as well as chickens and pigs, using the waste from the livestock to help power the facility (with a possibility of using human waste to generate additional electrical power). For more on his ideas, see: http://www.verticalfarm.com/more?essay1 and http://www.verticalfarm.com.

Vertical farming as prof. Despommier describes can also be used to grow fish and the fish waste is then cycled into the plants to provide a cheap source of nutrients. For more info on that, google "aquaculture."

Much more detailed analysis is at http://www.iees.ch/EcoEng041/EcoEng041_verticalFarm.html. An interesting point in this article: there are over 9000 acres of vacant land owned by the city of New York; by my calculations if all of that were turned into vertical farm skyscrapers (9000 x 50,000) it would feed 450 million people, using Despommier's skyscraper farms. The population of New York is around 8 million so they would need 160 of the 50 story vertical farm buildings to feed its entire population. Currently, land area the size of the state of Virginia is needed to grow the crops to feed New Yorkers. If we could allow some or all of that land to return to natural forests that would be a great boon to the ecology and the environment.

Others have simply said, we have enough rooftop space in cities (that is currently being wasted) that a two story greenhouse could be built on top of each building to feed the cities residents. That would provide a source of revenue to the building owners and cleaner, more nutritious fresh produce for the residents.

For the do-it-yourselfer apartment dwellers: windowfarms.org has a very simple solution.

For the commercial grower crowd:
1.) http://www.omegagarden.com/ - "revolutionary rotary hydroponic systems designed with convenience, simplicity, and maximum yield in mind."
... cylindrical planters with a light in the center, rotates each plant tray into a nutrient bath solution.
2.) http://www.valcent.net/s/Home.asp - among the best inventions of 2009: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/vertical-farming-system.php
... stacks 6 to 8 trays on a rotating system that brings each plant to a nutrient sprayer.
3.) http://www.valcent.eu/AlphaCrop.html - a different version from Valcent's European division.
... A-frame shape so each plant is always receiving sunlight, the trays rotate into a nutrient bath solution.
4.) http://aerofarms.com/ - uses aeroponics which sprays the roots of the plants with a nutrient solution.
... Uses a reusable cloth medium as a conveyor for plants from one end of the aeroponic system where they are seeded to the other end where they are harvested.
5.) http://www.terraspheresystems.com/ - "yields growth rates that are 30-60 percent faster than traditional field cultivation methods."
... stacks 11 trays high, each with its own lighting. "In a traditional greenhouse, Cornell University currently grows 11.5 pounds of spinach per square foot annually. TerraSphere grows 50 to 60 pounds per square foot annually." http://www.terraspheresystems.com/advantages.html

Summary: if you are concerned with food safety, want to eat food with no pesticide or herbicide residue, want your food to be fresh and high in nutrients, or think that flying lettuce from California or shipping food from South America is just plain ridiculous, you should be interested in vertical farms.

[handmade34]

1. thanks for the post

we must consider and be open to all alternatives ideas and methods concerning agriculture and our food control

[CRH]

2. It would be interesting to see, ...

some engineering studies on ventilation, cooling, humidity control and use of ambient lighting, if a multistoried approach was attempted.

As well hydroponics is not without its challenges. The damage of common insects might be minimized, but mites, other micro organisms, fungus and molds, could be a challenge in an intensive use of planting space. Present indoor hydroponic applications do have significant need of chemical control of the aforementioned, in non intensive, non stacked, growing methods. If artificial lighting is added to the mix, the complexity of the study expands greatly.

It would be interesting studying the potential.

[donco]

3. If only they could add some

taste/flavor to the greenhouse veggies would be glad to jump aboard.

[txlibdem]

5. Cardboard flavor is caused by picking too soon, so they can be shipped 1000 miles

That is caused by picking the produce when they're still green, weeks too early, so it can be shipped thousands of miles. They fool you into thinking they're ripe by pumping ethylene gas into the shipping container, changing the color of the produce to look ripe.

When the grower is able to pick the fruits and vegetables when they're ripe they are full of flavor. That is one of the hidden benefits of locally grown produce: the food has the time to absorb all of the flavor and nutrition it is supposed to have.

[Exultant Democracy]

4. Too bad all the majority of municipalities, states and the federal government

won't be spending much if any money on this solution soon. Right now we desperately need to reinvest in our urban area's if we want to have a green future and a quality of life that we have become accustomed to.

[Igel]

6. The problem with stacking layers is light.

Most veggies want pretty intense light levels. It's why most veggies don't do well in the shade of trees and houses outside. Heck, the turnips and hong vit shaded my spinach and mibuna and they didn't do all that well as a result, still growing outside and getting some sun. The cauliflower, shaded by my fence, are way behind the broccoli that germinated at the same time. Next time I know not to plant anything that close to the turnips. Or the hong vit.

Yeah, you can replace that light. Save space. And really rack up the energy bills. So, how do you generate that electricity? Solar? Too inefficient. Gas? Oil? Coal? Nuclear?

I'll wait. There's a lot of inefficiently used land. Just look at my neighborhood, for instance.

[txlibdem]

7. There's a lot of inefficiently used land. Just look at my neighborhood, for instance.

That's a start and we should in truth all be tearing out our lawns and replacing them with vegetable gardens or greenhouses. Or both.

But. The amount of new farmland the world will need by 2050 is the size of Brazil. That amount of new farmland just doesn't exist. Anywhere. We can't think only of ourselves because food and fresh water shortages will cause economic collapse, massive numbers of refugees, possibly even wars or genocide in many parts of the world. Even on moral grounds, we cannot just stand by and watch entire nations sink into a death spiral.

Your point on the need for supplemental lighting is well taken. You ask, "How would you generate all that electricity?" Let's also ask what we're doing right now: shipping food 1000 to 3000 miles to get it to your grocery store. Some cities are putting their lettuce on an airplane flying out of California. Where do we get all that energy once peak oil hits? Where do we get 20 times the fresh water than a hydroponic growing system would use?

Peak oil is going to make burning a few thousand light bulbs look like a gnat caught in a hurricane.

[Buddyblazon]

8. Living in Colorado during "The Green Rush"...

has taught me a bunch of things about indoor growing...teehee.

Really...know some people that are vertical growing. They just switched. Yields look to be exponentially more than just with a simple hood and bulb.

Now the term "vertical" in pot growing generally refers to the way you set up your HID lights. Instead of putting them in hoods where the light is only shown down...the bulbs are dropped BARE (remember...these HID bulbs get VERY VERY HOT!) in the middle of the grow. The way I've seen it done is 5x600w bulbs dropped like the "5" on a dice. Then 4 plants are put in the openings. Now, instead of just shining down...the bare bulbs emit a "globe" of light. It's not reduced by glass or being reflected of the reflective surface in a hood. The result is plants the size of outdoor grows (with the sun being unmatchable with any bulb)...indoors.

With in that "vertical", there are several different ways to set up your plants. I've seen them flat on the floor with bulbs hanging in the middle and the corners. I've also seen "Stadium" set ups where the plants are stacked as if they're sitting in the stands and watching a football game. The bare bulbs are hung in a line down the middle. There is also "column" or "coliseum" set ups where the plants are stacked in the shape of an upright tube or column and the bare bulbs are hung in the center.


Really...the yields are absolutely ridiculous. I would say 3-4 times the amount of indoor with a hood. It's just a little more dangerous (the exposed bulbs) and ventilation HAS to be dialed to keep temperatures from shooting through the roof.

But really, just way more efficient.


Living in Colorado these days is friggin' awesome, BTW. lol

[treehuggnlibrul]

9. Thanks for the link/info... Another project:

www.windowfarms.org is a hydroponic project for city dwellers wanting to eat local... Some are adding an aquaculture component, too.

Will Allen ( www.growingpower.org ) has also been a proponent of vertical farms. His is a very worthy program to make good food accessible to all, with great efforts on the food justice front -- can't say enough good about him.

[txlibdem]

10. Your link shows them growing in dirt

Dirt farming exposes plants to parasites, fungi, bacteria, etc. It was a nice site and I'm sure they have laudable goals.

The OP is about ways to feed 9 billion people by 2050, without killing the planet (and us with it). Growing in dirt will never achieve this goal.

[Buddyblazon]

11. Flavor in hydro is crap...

while you can get much bigger yields in hydro...it just ain't right. Product looks like it's on steroids and is devoid of flavor. While dirt farming exposes plants to what you said that's not always a bad thing. There are also issues with hydro. Root rot is one of the first I can think of. Also algae. There are issues with both. With that said...I grow and will continue to grow organically.

That fungi and bacteria are GOOD things when growing organically. "Teas" are "brewed" SPECIFICALLY for fungi and bacterial growth. In organic growing you actually feed this "microherd" of beneficial fungi and bacteria...and the waste the leave behind is what the plants love. "Teas" are usually made with Guana or Kelp, Earth Worm Castings, Molasses, etc and I used powdered mycorrhizae...put it all in a stocking. Put the stocking in a five gallon bucket...aerate it for 24hrs. Have to use it immediately (once is smells "bad" it's gone anaerobic and should be tossed...I throw it on my compost pile)

The end result is truly fantastic tasting produce...and if done correctly...will give massive yields.

I watch a short (wish I could find it) of the guy who holds many of the growing records (i.e. largest squash, largest pumpkin, etc) actually grows in this manner...organically in dirt.

You can also recycle the dirt. It needs time to rest on the pile and be replenished. But dirt can be used again and again.

Are parasites a problem? Sure. But you still get fungus gnats and spider mites in hydro. You can also get root aphids in hydro. Slightly less pests...but zero if any "buffer" for your plants should anything go wrong....

and it's the hydro is the equivalent of pumping cows full of steroids and hormones. Hell...my gut has an allergic reaction to non-organic milk.


Nope. Soil. Organic. Like nature intended it...just with a little natural science used to aid.

[txlibdem]

14. I think we agree on some points

When you get a piece of fruit or some veggies with no flavor that tells you they were picked long before they were allowed to ripen, this is usually because they come from thousands of miles away. No plant will taste right when it's picked weeks early and then artificially ripened by pumping ethylene gas into them during shipping.

I'm an amateur organic gardener and I agree with you that, for my backyard, organic soil growing is far better than anything else. At the grocery store I try to pick locally grown. The taste is the difference and I believe that it tastes better because all of the nutrients and chemicals that *should* be there have had the time to grow/accumulate adequately. My problem is that I grew up on a farm. We always had ripe tomatoes right off the vine, green beans, peas, radishes, carrots, you name it, so I know what things are supposed to taste like. You probably do too since you're an organic grower.

The difficulty with hydroponics is that each plant wants to have a specific mixture of nutrients at just the right concentration. And most plants want a different mixture and concentration at each of the 4 stages of plant growth from seed to harvest. The equipment that can properly control the dosing of each component of the nutrient mixture is too expensive for the home gardener. The best ones are computer controlled and come with precision measuring sensors as well to make sure that what goes to the plants is exactly right for their stage of growth. You'll know the difference when you taste a professionally grown hydroponic lettuce then taste one grown by amateurs.

There are also other factors that affect productivity. Many plants want to stay within a narrow temperature range and that may change with each stage of growth as does the number of hours of light that they want.

The only way to do all of those things is growing in a greenhouse under artificial light and using hydroponic growing methods.

Please compare the yield per acre of organic growing versus hydroponic:
Tomatoes: field grown = 40,000 to 60,000 lbs/acre; hydroponic = 650,000 lbs/acre average for US and Canada
Cucumbers: field grown = 10,000 lbs/acre; hydroponic = 200,000 lbs/acre
etc.

Sorry if I sound like I'm taking you to task, that's not my intent. The OP was an honest look at the situation we're in worldwide and an attempt to find a solution that would not only provide food, use 1/20th the water and eliminate the high fossil fuel use of current farming methods.

[treehuggnlibrul]

12. Yes, I'm aware he's growing in "dirt"

I assume you're referring to the link to Growing Power and not the link to The Windowfarms Project.

Will is addressing a current, critical need in food justice and does grow "in dirt" (soil) however, he strongly believes that the future of agriculture lies in vertical farming.

[Buddyblazon]

13. You can grow in dirt...AND

vertically grow. It's not like you can't do both.

I saw this great vertical grow where the grower put plants in soil in 5 gallon Home Depot buckets. He then made a circle on the floor with the buckets. He stacked another layer of buckets on top of the bottom circle...just staggering (being careful not to crush the plants in the buckets below).

He continued in this manner until his "cylinder" or "column" was about 7' high. He then dropped two 1000w HPS down the middle of the column of pots.

This was in a basement with a floor drain. He would just hand water each of the plants (required a ladder). Runoff would drop a little into the buckets below. Any runoff went into the floor drain.

Yields were ridiculous.

But it was vertical...it was in soil.

[treehuggnlibrul]

15. Good point!

Sounds interesting!

[txlibdem]

16. That's cool too

Going vertical is really a no-brainer. I guess I have a preference for hydroponic growing methods. See post #14 for my reasons why.

[Buddyblazon]

17. I don't know how appropriate this is...

but here's a subforum with a bunch of journals of vertical grows. It's pot. But it's all fascinating to see some of the methods employed by these guys.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=65628

Like I said...all those grows are going to be of marijuana. But if you're not bashful and you're interested in what these cats do...here ya go.

Edit to add: That subforum is all forms of vertical growing. Something I should clarify is that in this application, the term "vertical" refers to the manner in which the HID bulbs are hung...vertically as opposed to horizontally. It's the fact that without the hood and hung vertically, you get a "globe" of light...as opposed to a footprint one would get with a reflective hood. This globe of light allows for the light to be used in an exponentially more efficient way...producing jaw dropping yields...in ANY type of medium (soil, hydroton, coco coir, rock wool, etc.).

[JohnWxy]

18. interesting!

[fasttense]

19. My friend is in the process of dismantling his hydroponic greenhouse.

The greenhouse was huge had to be about 60 by 100 feet. He had money and invested in everything. He had air circulating, heat and insulation. He had the vertical columns and an indoor washing station. It was really state of the art. But he could NOT make a profit off it. The stuff he grew in summer had to compete with less expensive produce grown in dirt.

So, he tried to specialize in winter growing. He could grow cabbage, kale and other frost hardy plants, just like in any greenhouse, but again he couldn't get the price he wanted. He was competing with greenhouses that grew frost hardy plants in dirt for much less cost.

So, then he tried the not so frost hardy plants and put in some heat and insulation. He found that along the edges of his greenhouse, the plants would freeze. Then he got algae or fungus or some black stuff in the lines that feed the chemicals to the plants. He found this was much more likely to happen if he grew organically and in a heated environment. So, he switched to non-organic (which was cheaper anyway) but then a particularly bad winter made the cost of heating the greenhouse outrageous.

So, last year he disconnected it and was in the process of selling off the pieces (I bought his washing station). Yeah, you can grow hydroponically but can you get a price for your produce that allows you to break even or make a profit? You still have to compete with dirt farmers.

[txlibdem]

20. I'm sorry to hear about your friend's experience

Thank you for sharing your story. My parents' small farm went under when I was young so I know the heartache of putting your heart, soul, love, sweat and a whole lot of backbreaking work into a small farm only to see it go under. My sincere condolences to your friend.

As to how it relates to the success of commercial hydroponics operations, I'm sorry to have to tell you but perhaps you already know, the economics of a 6000 square foot greenhouse are vastly different from a greenhouse that takes up an entire acre (43,560 square feet). There are economies of scale with the larger operation that make it a completely unfair competition. Not to mention that the 50 story vertical farms in the OP will be very near their customer base so they have an immediate customer base from residents as well as restaurants in the area. Not to mention that it would have an effective greenhouse area of 50 acres.