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Vertical Farming


The agricultural challenge

Right now, humanity has a big challenge to solve. Our population is growing that we need to feed. However, traditional agriculture is feeding the world at the expense of important ecosystems. The big challenge is, how do we feed a growing population without endangering natural ecosystems?  In this post, we will be talking about vertical farming. So, what is vertical farming?

What is vertical farming?

 Vertical farming is basically farming plants vertically, but why would you do that? Think of this, how many books are in your library? You'd probably say that is impossible, but you can walk through you library and not be exhausted, right? So how can a library store so many books in one building? It's because they store books on shelves, right? That's basically what vertical farms are trying to do, except with crops. Vertical farming is indoors so unlike agriculture that 


happens outside, you can precisely control the conditions your crops grow in. It also saves water because you can also recycle the water unlike outdoor agriculture. Also, there are no pesticides because it's indoors. You can also grow a lot of crop in little space because it's vertical.  In this blog post, we will be focusing on a vertical farm company called Plenty.

 Plenty's technology


For the plants to have better flavor than traditional agriculture, Plenty optimizes the color of the light they are using. For example, to make kale crunchy, Plenty shines blue light onto it. The lightbulbs they use are LEDs. LEDs have been going down in cost and up in efficiency. These LEDs are the key to Plenty's technology, but how do the plants get water and nutrients? Plenty uses a hydroponics system which submerges the plant roots in water. The water also contains nutrients that the plants need to grow. The nutrient composition also varies by plant species. For example, strawberries need more phosphorus than other plants, so their water will have more phosphorus than other plants' water. In a Plenty warehouse, humans and robots work together to grow the food.

Plenty's future

Right now, Plenty is planning to build another facility in the city of Compton. It will be great because Compton is a "food desert". They will hire people in the area to work in the facility which is also great. However, traditional farming families will lose their jobs and it will be a difficult shift for traditional farmers. 

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Comments

  1. SQLQUERYApril 17, 2023 at 8:42 AM

    Good one. Keep blogging

    ReplyDelete
  2. PaniApril 20, 2023 at 6:24 AM

    Nice, I didn't know this type of farming. Keep blogging. Good job, Shreyas.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 1, 2023 at 9:00 PM

    I will. Thanks - Shreyas

    ReplyDelete

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