Vertical Farming, Sustainability in 3 Dimensions

Vertical farming is a practice of growing crops vertically in a few stacked of layer with a main purpose to maximise the production of crops with minimum usage of land area. It is usually practised in challenging cities, deserts and mountain side towns due to limiting factor such small land area, lack of nutritious soil and unsuitable geography. Used warehouse and shipping container are the common structure that be used in this kind of farming. The modern ideas of vertical farming use indoor farming technique that includes controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology. These facilities allow farmer to control the optimum condition for the growth of plants. Some farmer also used artificial lighting and metal reflector to mimic natural sunlight. It is believed that vertical farming is one of the genius ideas to end world hunger problem. The population of human is increasing from time to time. This might help to strengthen world food security.

Vertical Farming architecture

So, how does vertical farming works? Vertical farming can works in many ways such as
hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic. Hydroponics is a predominant system of growing that is used in vertical farming, and it is slowly but steadily, gaining importance. It involves around the growth of plants in solutions of nutrients that are essentially free of soil. In this vertical farming innovation, the roots of the plants are submerged in a solution of nutrients. This is frequently circulated and monitored in order to ensure that there is the maintenance of the correct chemical composition in the nutrient solution.

Aeroponic

An Aquaponics System is much like the Hydroponics System but is only better. It aims to combine the fish and plants in the same ecosystem. In this system, fish grow in indoor ponds and produce a nutrient-rich waste that further acts as a food source for the plants grown in vertical farms. The plants, doing their part, purify and filter the wastewater that gets recycled directly to the fish ponds. Aquaponics is definitely used at a smaller scale than most vertical farming innovations. However, it is still used by many commercial vertical farms that wish to produce just a few fast-growing crops instead of including the component of aquaponics. As a result, the production and economics issues are simplified and it also maximizes efficiency.

Aquaponic

Next, aeroponics is the growing plants with no soil and very little water. The innovation of Aeroponics in the field of vertical farming was made by The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). This sustainable growing technique was invented by NASA in the 1990s when it was looking for efficient techniques to grow plants in space. This technique was then coined Aeroponics and was defined as "growing plants in an air/mist environment with no soil and very little water." However, these systems are yet to rise from an anomaly in the world of vertical farming even though they continue to create interest.

Hydroponic

            There are many of importance of vertical farming. First of all the production of farming will exponentially increase and this is important as the humankind increased together with the demand of farming production. How can this be is because special infrastructure will be used for vertical farming where the inside of it always in it optimum condition for plant. So, the crops can be produce all year round. Especially country with four seasons, they no longer need to do so many thing as winter coming because crops can still be produce through the dead of the winter. Next, the number of production also exponentially increase because vertical farming is super space saving. Have you go to Ikea and see many kind of space saving furniture. The same goes for the infrastructure of vertical farming where 10 acres  -or more- worth of production can be produced from only one acre of land. Now it’s no longer a wonder how can vertical farming make the production increase exponentially.

Space saving Vertical Farming

            Peoples nowadays have to watch  their diet and worry not, your veggie and fruits produce from vertical farming are pesticide free. Consumer does not need to keep worrying whether or not their food will make them sick because all of this organic approach promises fresh and toxin-free produce. Although the start-up cost of vertical farming are high, it is still an effective model that will save more money down the line. In other words, more affordable crops can be produced. And lastly, one that also bring a big impact on our earth is we can preserve the environment. We can help preserve the environment and grow our food simply in cities. This way, we will not venture into the rainforest and harm the last few parts of the earth.  

No weather disruption is one of its advantages Crops grown in traditional outdoor farming depend on supportive weather, and suffer from undesirable temperatures rain, monsoon, hailstorm, tornado, flooding, wildfires and drought. "Three recent floods (in 1993, 2007 and 2008) cost the United States billions of dollars in lost crops, with even more devastating losses in topsoil. Changes in rain patterns and temperature could diminish India's agricultural output by 30 % by the end of the century." Vertical farming productivity is mostly independent of weather, although earthquakes and tornadoes still pose threats.

          The issue of adverse weather conditions is especially relevant for arctic and sub-arctic areas like Alaska and northern Canada where traditional farming is largely impossible. Food insecurity has been a long-standing problem in remote northern communities where fresh produce has to be shipped large distances resulting in high costs and poor nutrition. Container-based farms can provide fresh produce year-round at a lower cost than shipping in supplies from more southerly locations with a number of farms operating in locations such as Churchill, Manitoba and Unalaska, Alaska As with disruption to crop growing, local container-based farms are also less susceptible to disruption than the long supply chains necessary to deliver traditionally grown produce to remote communities. Food prices in Churchill spiked substantially after floods in May and June 2017 forced the closure of the rail line that forms the only permanent overland connection between Churchill and the rest of Canada.       

  

The first major disadvantage of vertical agriculture is that the electricity cost of light and climate control is extremely high, among which refrigeration and humidification are the main reasons, It is hard to make it economically viable. And that technology currently doesn't provide enough light to support many crops. Second, compared with natural light, the flavour of its products is not good, which is also a problem that a lot of studies have focused on. The third stage investment is quite large. It is difficult to realize organic production at present and organic fertilizer is easy to block the irrigation and drainage system.

In Malaysia, the rate of urbanization has increase rapidly. Most of the population are currently occupies urban areas. This rapid urbanization has had big consequences on the distribution of population and huge demands of land, water, housing, transport and employment. This space saving vertical farming is a very ideal to be worked on in the city. Many new scopes of jobs will also be available as it start to take place. Lastly, since the vertical farming is in a preserved condition, it is not impossible for Malaysian in future generation to enjoy exotic fruits and vegetable from outside in affordable price. Still, that’s a long way to go.

Vertical farming helps a lot in producing large amount and high quality of farm produce. Plus, it could reduce the amount of farmland needed, which could decrease deforestation and pollution. However, there are some parts of vertical farming that can be improved; such the usage of electricity and minimizing the usage of chemical throughout the growth process of plants. There are a lot of room of improvement in this system. If we could lower the operational cost, everyone could enjoy the produce at affordable price.