I can't wait until vertical farming becomes cheap enough to overtake traditional farming methods. Pesticide use will be a thing of the past while all of our food is grown locally in controlled environments. Optimizing for food taste instead of pesticide or weather resistance.
Not to mention the reduced carbon footprint (due to transportation), significant decrease in water usage, and increased efficiency.
The excuse to legalize all these pesticides and genetic food was to feed the hungry in the 3rd world. What actually happened is we are eating it, the companies are making more money and kids are still starving in many parts of the world.
>I can't wait until vertical farming becomes cheap enough to overtake traditional farming methods
There was a recent post about "World’s largest vertical strawberry farm" that recently opened[1], and the price quoted for the product was "$20 for 8 strawberries". That still seems terribly expensive, at least compared to conventional produce. What technological breakthroughs are on the horizon that would reduce that price to levels that are comparable to conventional produce?
you think controlled environments don't use chemicals to control pests???
They do, and they use them a lot, because controlling pests and pathogens is physically hard no matter how hard you try.
Vertical farming is way, way more energy intensive than regular outdoor based farming for the simple reason is outdoor farming can use the sun. That sole fact basically kills vertical farming for all but the highest of margin food (spices, some vegetables). When we get cheap energy, vertical farming will take off. Not before.
Controlled environments, are, well, erm, controlled, so something like a hydroponic greenhouse normally wouldn't use pesticides at all - pests should not be getting in at all.
If the greenhouse uses normal soil then ofcourse it's not totally isolated, but still i'd expect them to use less
I've heard of facilities with short crop cycles (greens, herbs, etc.) running totally bug-free with zero pesticides, with air showers at the entrance and careful segregation so that one introduction doesn't ruin their whole crop, etc. I don't think that's common, though.
There's usually bugs. It's common to deliberately introduce predatory insects, which control the pests in the same way as in nature, with the additional benefit that they can't fly away if the pest population gets too low. Chemical pesticides are also widely used, both organic and non-organic.
Hydroponic crops are especially vulnerable to sucking pests (aphids, whiteflies, etc.), because of the large amounts of tender new growth. Without controls or natural predators, their population can just explode, much worse than anything you'd get outdoors.
Having spent alot of time in controlled environments, the name is misleading. These are chip making clean facilities. I'd guess >99% of CE facilities have to spray pesticides.
Thrips, white flies, and other insects are _very_ common.
ETA: to add info for you. CE usually implies the control is from inputs (water, nutrients, light) not physical access.
What you are looking is called a greenhouse, they are what enable Netherlands to be the world's 2nd largest exporter of food and much of UK vegetables come from there.
Vertical greenhouses trade space efficiency for energy efficiency, you have to provide lights because they can't make full use of natural sunlight.
This only makes sence for some low-calorie foods, like berries and salads - you have to provide too much light to grow something calorious like -potato
> This only makes sence for some low-calorie foods, like berries and salads - you have to provide too much light to grow something calorious like -potato
Seems to me that collecting solar energy and then using to power LEDs close to the leaves of said plants could be doable up to a certain size (or number of floors). Our panels are inefficient but plant leaves are much worse.
Not to mention the reduced carbon footprint (due to transportation), significant decrease in water usage, and increased efficiency.