Vertical Farming: Feeding The Future

If we are what we are, the credit goes to agriculture. If today we are alive, it's all because of agriculture. But what do we give in return of this favour indirectly bestowed upon us. We give population explosion, urbanisation, deforestation, land degradation and the list is evergoing. When man got fed-up of his own activities he started devising various methods to control it and so came the idea of Vertical Farming.

The term vertical Farming was coined in 1915 by American Geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey. Architects and scientists have repeatedly looked into the idea since then, especially towards the end of 20th century.

Why Vertical Farming?

• Dynamic environment- The dynamic behaviour of environment is most harmful for agricultural sector. Even greenhouses exhibit many climate variotions. In order to overcome this problem scientists came up with an idea of adjusting climate according to the demand of plants which led to a discovery called as Controlled Environment Agriculture in which modern techniques like hydroponics, artificial lighting conditions were used. Later these crops were grown indoor in vertically stacked layers called Vertical Farming.

• Food Scarcity- According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of UN, food production must increase by 70% before year 2050 inorder to meet the global food needs but as population is increasing and so is urbanisation we need to increase our productivity not production and vertical Farming could help in this aspect

• Water scarcity - The agriculture sector demands 70% of the global water consumption according to an estimate. The conventional methods of cultivation involves wastage of water at a dramatic scale than can be reduced by adopting vertical Farming because each and every crop here is monitored by the help of Artificial Intelligence

• Vertical Farming utilizes three main systems hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaponics. All three systems for the growth of vegetation using no soil,but instead nutrient rich water solutions which the plant roots access directly.

• This approach offers a system with no or less loss of nutrients to the environment (10 to 20 time) , better control of waste production, loss to diseases and pest (40% less), year round crop production, no variation in productivity due to weather control.

Need of Vertical Farming in India

• In India 70% of the cultivated area is under rainfed condition which is one of the main reason for crop failure in our country. The land for cultivation is shrinking due to population explosion. Variable weather parameters have led to disastrous changes in the field of agriculture.

• The heavy doses of insecticides and herbicides have caused a lot of hazardous effects on our soil health and quality

• Due to global warming the attack of pests have been increasing at an alarming rate.

Major Problems with Vertical Farming

1. A huge amount of energy will be required to supplement these vertical farms.

2. The initial cost of construction required is very high. According to an estimate the initial building cost would exceed 100 million dollar for 60 hectare vertical farm.

3. It requires skilled labour or a technician because a normal farmer lacks the knowledge of running such a modern facility.

Vertical Farming can be considered as an alternative to conventional farming and as per the current scenario Vertical Farming is going to be the necessity of the human race in the coming future. As human being evolved so evolved their demands and with demand came technology. A technology is never good or bad. It solely depends on how we exploit that technology and till what measure.