I love your work here. It's been very informative, and I have nothing but respect. However it seems that that the stat on the number of farms in 1935 and in 2020 might be misleading. While there may be less farms, if the average farm in 2020 is 4 times the size of a farm in the 1935, then we'd actually have more active farm land today. Likewise, if a modern farm with new land usage methods is 4 times more productive, then there would be more food production today then there was in the 1935. All this to say that while stats are interesting, we need to take great care when using them to justify a point.
That stat seemed essentially meaningless to me as well. A better metric would be plant calories produced per capita or something like that. Or just don't mention it at all in a 4 minute video about vertical farming moving beyond leafy greens into fruit.
Millions of acres of US farmland has gone follow in the last half decade, especially in the last 3 years, due to climate change and lack of water. So while they are bigger farms they are producing less.
@@Streghamay 💯. Soil degradation, jumping worms and other invasive species, drought and other factors negate the size or productivity of 2020 farms compared to 1935 farms...
This subject is something I have been interested in for almost two decades, and to say it's the future is an understatement. This form of growing hasn't even begun to advance to the widespread scale of occurs during the enthusiastic snowballing effect of a gold rush, as it's still fairly well guarded knowledge. What I see happening in the future is the integration of other "natural systems" that can be observed throughout the world, but to the extent that they play an efficiency role within the hydroponic system. Such different aspects such as fungi and bugs to recycle "waste" into fertilizers for the plants, or even recycle air, as mycology/mushroom production has an incubation period that creates an intense amount of c02, which if dialed in to a hydroponic system will allow for the air to be recycles, as well as the heat that is carried within the air for a reduction in costs, as well as mixing spend mushroom substrate in with hydroponic substrate to reduce costs up to 50%, or even oyster mushroom's ability to filter water, particularly salt, when it passes through the substrate. I don't expect large corporations to take on these types of technologies, as they add a level of variable risk, but I assume we will see aspects integrated one company at a time until feasibility becomes predictable. The big game changer will be when GMO's are designed specifically for Hydroponics, not that I am a fan of GMO's but that will be how rice becomes a profitable crop to grow in a hydroponic system. I also thing there will eventually be a small farmer aspect to hydroponics, as many romanticize the notion of farming, but are limited to city living, or don't actually enjoy the hard work involved in actual farming. This is going to be where hydroponics takes off in the public perspective. Simple pump NFT systems that are customized through shared 3d print files, and aerobic nutrient machines to create affordable fertilizers from waste, to grow plants year round in dug out "chinese greenhouses" is essentially what the world needs to negotiate the stability of advancing our population growth. I currently grow leafy greens in this manor, as well as bush beans, and strawberries.
The number of farms doesn't matter. The number of farms in the US may be a third of what it was, but those same farms are 3-4 times the acreages. Which means the same amount of land is farmed by fewer companies.
A factor could be due to population growth creating new large towns. Still agree with your statement. But also the world population reaching 10 Billion is quite a debated subject. Western countries are declining in population, so unless this company is planning to move to Asia or Africa where the population is exploding then... it's slightly misleading.
It doesnt matter if the subject is quantity but it does matter if we're talking about consuming local and organic food. Big farms with monocultures can be dangerous.
Selling vertical farm set-up equipment to consumer houses and people grow their food in their backyard and charging subscription per month basis can also be game changer
@Chaos is a ladder that's fine if you want to have veggies that costs 3x traditionally farmed ones. Computer and robotic automation at scale are the way the industry can drive costs down. Human labour is too expensive in such a low margin industry
@@graham1034 yeah key words "at scale". If you just want your own personal garden why would you need robot arms and computers monitoring it? That doesn't seem very efficient. And besides it's good for people to go outside and pull weeds and water the plant.
Feels more like an ad rather than focusing on vertical farms all around the USA and the world . Japan has been in the strawberry game for years now no excuse for not researching more.
I live in a developing country where much of the population is poor. While I support indoor vertical farming, we need to go low tech: some crops cam grow in the dark - like mushrooms - so can be grown in low-light environs (even underground?); some crops can grow in low light so can be grown indoors; for crops that need full light & pollination I prefer rooftop or community gardening (via veggie tunnels to reduce need for pesticides?). Green roofs have additional benefits like enhancing building insulation (less heating & cooling required), rainwater harvesting, reducing the urban heat island effect & reducing stress (employees have somewhere nice to have lunch etc). Crops in cities must be grown using renewable energy sources. In my country medicinal plants are also important. Urban farming can prevent the over harvesting of wild plants.
There is plenty of room for both. I watched a video on RU-vid recently about developing countries growing urban agriculture, mostly on rooftops. Can't find it in my history though.
I have a start up that can provide this level of produce with much less expense. These AI systems are ridiculous for an entry level for a niche market.
@@Greenskies321 I disagree. The cost of those robotics and AI systems will drop over time (and the capability will increase over time) until it will be crazy to not have them. However, before that happens you need perfect both the software and hardware, which is what they are doing. The scale of indoor vertical farming is pretty small right now, so this is the time to work out those systems and get them mature.
@@NinetooNine I disagree. The cost of these vertical farms is affordable because of finance because of hype and because of media pumping the hype. Vertical is 3-5 times more costly than conventional, not even counting the negative externalities of energy production that will become more apparent as we try to limit ecological footprints. Living walls look great on Instagram and where a fad 8-10 y ago, most of them went away as people realized how costly they were to maintain...
@@daciogutierrez4132 LOL. The math says your wrong. Vertical farms are 10 times more productive on the same amount of land as regular farming. So even if it was 3-5 times more expensive it would still make sense to do. That doesn't even take into account the fact you are basically eliminating shipping issues/delays (pretty relevant in today's market). The real issues are the higher upfront capital costs to build than traditional systems. Also, these systems are not as of yet producing the cash crops that these companies need to make real money. That will come with time though.
I wholeheartedly support this technology. We've become too interdependent on other nations for our food supply. Imagine implanting these across a nation. Save so much on the logistics of transportation, more skilled jobs domestically, and greatly stabilize the food supply chain leading to stable prices independant of weather and other outside conditions.
What the media doesn't tell you is that this technology requires a lot of energy. The Netherlands is using it because they have abundant natural gas resources.
This technology has been proven not to work actually. Vertical greenhouse farming has been around for 100 years and the costs far outweigh the benefits. Cost of land per calorie is off the chart. Strawberries and lettuce aren't going to feed anyone for long. And strawberries don't grow in greenhouses cost effectively, and bumble bees don't pollinate strawberries well at all. Been tried 1000 times sorry.
Using the sun directly, photosynthesis is hard to beat. The silly part is the idea that this makes economic sense in cities where high rent forces the poor out and it is obvious that giving up X square feet of your living space to support your $3/week leafy greens needs would be crazy.
@@skyak4493 Just planting something in the ground and using nature to produce food is by far the most efficient method. We need to work with nature rather than try to out smart it.
The problem also is these systems are hydro, which require lots of mined minerals and are generally nutritionally poorer than rich good quality soil. I’d be curious to see how sweet strawberries chemically grown in hydro and under LED’s can actually be, I’d guess not sweet, but I could be wrong. Leafy greens are easier and lower sugar. Also just eat local seasonal berries, Jersey has amazing blueberries in season, don’t eat ones from Chile in January, or get frozen ones off season…👌
The fact that someone actually developed a robot with enough dexterity and sensitivity to actually pick strawberries is pretty amazing to me. I really have to wonder about the cost vs just employing people though.
Well, it's probably cheaper to employ undocummented immigrants exploiting them but investmens in robotics gets higher every year and cheaper to buy. agriculture automation is one of those things that will positively impact our lives in the coming decades. Organic cheap food with no exploitation and dont forget the land that is being made available. You can stack these very high.
@@harrymu148 In an ideal world, maybe. Likely though there would be ongoing costs - support/maintenance contract for one. A technician to fix them when they break down perhaps? Downtime could be expensive. Perhaps leasing might be a way to reduce upfront costs and still be worthwhile overall. Just a thought.
if you see just a business it more profitable robot but if you see necessary for human being it's another conversation 😱🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶
This model of farming is for cities, so getting an empty land or rooftop to create a greenhouse can be very difficult and very expensive. Though it's possible, it is very difficult to scale that. What they do is they target empty warehouses or industrial sites and reuse them for vertical farming.
A huge benefit of these is that Every stimuli these plants receive can be controlled. You can then for example replicate perfectly the 'perfect radishes of Italy 1987' or whatever. Greenhouses/natural sunlight massively reduces that. Also, makes the design no longer infinitely replicable, where you now have to make changes based on location as the weather changes
this also saves water as the water used can be recycled in house and it if crossed when fetilizer is used. The waste water can be used to grow more plant as it will still have fertilizer in it
They should research more on how to grow STAPLE FOODS indoors in larger quantities like rice, wheat, barley, corn, soya these are the dominant large quantity mass consumption of humans not leafy green veggies, they are also consumed by our livestocks that provides our meat. Shifting to staple foods is more viable than “berries”
Its about square footage and led is low wattage. Believe me, vertical seafarming is also becoming a thing, below the water in vertical seaweed farms. 2 steps ahead, we started this vertical farming trend where? Its mostly started from cannabis growers, as usual ha. Wait until these green growers discover UV supplement lighting we are using now to make better plants...
Well if mankind had an intelligent economic system, then they could repurpose all the empty office buildings into farms, as office people went to working from home.
I got to 1:30 when you said the population was supposed to surge to 10B - if you're using that to justify what you are doing, it is not worth watching the rest - population is actually supposed to fall.
This video feels like an advertisement and is rather misleading. The decrease in the amount of farms, paired with the increasing global population is misguided, as this doesn't account for the consolidation and expansion of acreage of modern farms, neither the substantial growth in agricultural technology and efficiency. Secondly, 'vertical farms are moving beyond leafy greens', how is this the case given what was shown in this video? All we saw was a company that principally uses vertical farming to grow simple and relatively easy leafy salad greens, whom have bought a couple tracts of traditional farmland (one in NY and one in Baltimore) to grow strawberries in the exact same manner in which they are currently and have always been grown by any other farmer, the difference being only in the harvesting of said strawberries by using AI instead of seasonal workers. In what way is this an expansion of vertical farming? I love the concept and I hope for this sector to grow in the coming years, but with the high costs of energy and initial investment to even start such a venture, this type of agriculture is still a long way off unfortunately. It also seems clear that this company (and others) have yet to get the cost down to reasonable and affordable levels for the average consumer, this as they keep mentioning how their product is better for the environment (despite the high energy input and building materials for the farms), and that consumers should be willing to pay a little more for such a product. If they cannot get the price down (despite growing simple salad greens) the average consumer will not pay extra no matter how eco-conscious they are, nor how interesting and different the farming method used was.
It's most likely just going to bee bees and manual picking. It's the cheapest and simplest solution. I don't think there currently is a way to automate polination for strawberries (though there are some techniques for polinating tomatos etc.), and there most certainly isn't a solution for automating strawberry picking. Am I the only one who noticed that the "strawberry picking robot" did pretty much everything wrong when picking stawberries? Picking immature berries, leaving stems on, and probably squeezing the berry in a way that would make it spoil in a day.
The main issue is space, volume of production and the amount of electricity required. So it is not very green and productive. Robots are great, but still lot of labour.
no, the idea behind vertical farms is the same as that of skyscrappers; you are utilising the space above (vertical space), hence, requiring less horizontal space
It may use a lot of electricity but a vertical farm in a building the size of your typical Costco is equivalent to 700,000 acres of traditional farming. I would suspect the carbon foot print would be a lot less than traditional methods.
@@Loawercs31 i work in agriculture and I am an ecologists. We done those calculations, there are different forms of farming broad acre and cultivation, market garden. Those vertical systems compete with market gardens, however those are already very intense small area farms, using hydroponics, green houses etc. Those are close to cities so the carbon footprint is lot lower for the yield. So in space and carbon savings there is very little to gain. So if you talking mega cities like Shanghai etc maybe
This and aquaponics, for sure.. 2 steps ahead. Most of this all comes from ideas of cannabis growers who did vertical farming and LED for many years now 🕶
Vertical towers >>>>> horizontal systems by ROI by a mile. Bowery and other farms of this caliber will never compete with soil ones due to their lack of ROI focus for investors. There’s better systems with less bells and whistles
There are a lot of benefits, but I don't see this being that viable in the business sense unless energy gets a lot cheaper. Also the statistic about the growing population keeps being brought up with these vertical farm pitches but for first world country birth rates are plummeting and population decrease will probably be more likely.
It is not a wrong thing to do if you want to grow as fast as possible. If you are connected to the grid your night time energy can be cheap off peak and day time can be paid for by the solar nearby. The main saving for this kind of vertical farm is the transportation cost (say flying strawberries from California to Maine or Alaska).
People's numbers increase in the future. Farmlands are gone. People need food. This is the answer. Do you want to have a lot of money in the future? Do the vertical farm now. Believe me, I come from the future. :)
Gotta make it cheaper though to create incentetive. That should be possible since there are no pesticide cost, pest control, overall damage of yield or crops from nature's side etc
its much more expensive to produce because of the high energy costs compares to traditional farming that get free warmth and light from the sun and also the high costs of r&d. Up to now the industry didn't provide a viable business plan and relies heavily on the hype generated by the media to raise funds. That is why in 2022 and 2023 many of the promising players in the industry went bankrupt.
This could be a good way to provide fresh produce in areas that can't grow these kinds of plants locally. Especially in areas that don't get much rain, but plenty of sunshine. Mix it with solar power and you may have a winning combination. An additional thought, I hope that they are using biodegradable or reusable packaging. Otherwise the earth friendliness of this farming method goes right out the window.
but these farms only can use chemical fertilizers. they can't use organic fertilizers unlike planting in the soil. thus it might not taste as good as those grown on soil with organic fertilizers.
Solves a lot of problems. Deforestation for farm land Over farming land Pesticide run off Wildfires destroying crops Pests and animals Crop circles Having to contend with weather That building needs to be lined to solar panels on top. Use the sun to power lights to mimic the sun lol
Bowery, your packaging fails color contrast accessibility terribly. White text on a lime green background is extremely hard to read and doesn't stand out at all. It's probably the cheapest win you can have to change your packaging to black text...
Still everything is stored in plastic containers.. why haven't more switched to plant material or something else eco friendly? Maybe because there is already so much investment in plastic and it would be to expensive to make the switch without subsidies..
Well if we could fix our energy system then they wouldn’t. Fossil fuel prices are volatile and many are unwilling to expand our use of nuclear energy. This all makes energy prices unstable and hinders the progress of such technology
@@seankilburn7200 Amen. Europe is a specialist in this problem with all of its stupid socialist geen ideals. I'm all for them but not if technology isn't there. Instead now they have to buy natural gas from Russia
We have the abilities to make our lives amazing, but we aren't using it to the full extent. I try to give the world seemingly endless clean energy and they just keep ignoring it.
All of the food and the power is outside, that's it. Sorry humanity, you cant science your way out of this problem as easily as you scienced your way into it.
How about when humans colonize Mars or the moon? Or if a supervolcano erupts or there's nuclear fallout outside? Or heck, what if there's snow outside?
Great Reset at work. Produce food in warehouses and harvested by robots. No thanks, I think I’ll just grow my own food in good old fashioned dirt, fresh air, and real sunshine.
Pair this up with nuclear fusion and that's the utopian version of the future for agriculture... however, even with modern technology small-scale fission should be more widely accepted. The cons of fission (nuclear waste) is really not an issue compared to the cons of modern agriculture (desertification, co2 buildup, pollution, depleting freshwater... etc. etc.)
so more people will live in cities but you need verticals farms? what are you gonna do with all the empty land that is left behind by all these people living for the cities?
Actually they're likely to taste better. The plants don't have to be as robust to survive against pests, inclement weather, and long haul shipping. So breedersand farmers will be able to select for fruits that taste better rather than the ones that survive better.
