180
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
180 points (100.0% liked)
Science
12995 readers
27 users here now
Studies, research findings, and interesting tidbits from the ever-expanding scientific world.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I still don't understand the economics of vertical farming. Isn't that a lot of extra infrastructure to produce the same plants? What area of solar panels do you need to power an acre-equivalent production of vertical crops?
The biggest step up would be changing consumer preferences and maybe different regulation (tighter animal welfare laws, emissions standards and/or removing any subsidies for animal agriculture).
Consider this: You can install a massive local vertical farm directly inside a large city, but you can't do the same for normal farming. Thus severely reducing the economic/ecological costs of farming, because you can supply locally produced veggies directly into stores, rather than needing to haul them for 50-1000km away.
And stuff like: You can grow plants 24/7 with no breaks as it's all automated. You can adjust the "climate" just right for whatever plant you're growing. You're not using massive plots of land that could for example be used for housing, and leaking fertilizer/pesticides to the soil/rivers/lakes/sea. You're not wasting a ton of energy by using combustion based machinery, and also not causing more pollution. In general the energy required for vertical farming can be done entirely by solar.
That makes sense. I guess what I'm hoping for is a breakdown of the exact costs and footprints involves, at least in estimation. Like, less shipping is great, but a solar farm plus a factory-greenhouse is not a small investment, and the solar farm can't be made vertical, which will cut down on the area savings at least somewhat.
I get why everyone goes for leafy greens, since I've experienced sad Canadian winter lettuce. I've also heard it's a bad choice, somehow, and a lot of startups have failed as a result.
Well you can repurpose a lot of what used to be large farmlands and install large solar farms there, potentially grow some plants in the solar panels shadows as well. Win-win situation.