Vertical Farming A Professional Grower Checks the Hype

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Hi again it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose farm  when I mentioned the term "vertical farming" what   exactly is it that you envision? Is it these gleaming  stainless steel and glass towers : mega-structures   like from some science fiction novel? Or are you  thinking of a cavernous warehouse completely   sterile with staff and lab coats and face  coverings growing micro greens and solid greens   under artificial light? Given what the conception  is in popular culture of vertical farming you'd be   justified in thinking either one of those things  but what really is it? Vertical farming is kind of the place where   agriculture meets not only science fiction but  tech company valuations and hype because they're   raising hundreds of millions of dollars towards  these mega-projects in North America alone I   watched an award-winning documentary  and great quality called "Vertical: the future of   farming" where they take a rather uncritical look I  have to say at these vertical farming technologies   as they emerge and let's take a look at a clip  of that some vertical Farms yield as much as 10   times the amount of crops in the same amount of  space as a conventional Farm but the benefits go   deeper than simply space because they're indoors  the environment is controlled there are no Seasons   so crops can be grown any time of the year in any  part of the world use of pesticides herbicides and   fertilizers aren't necessary now wait a second  it sounds like they just said there would be   no fertilizer I mean the plants are going to need  to get their nutrients from somewhere and looking   back a little further did they just say that there  would be no pests at all well they didn't quite   say that but this other video by Freethink goes  the full way when you grow things outside the   elements are much more unpredictable if you grow  indoors you can control a lot of those factors   in ways that aren't accessible to outdoor Growers  and the result is that our produce can be you know   hundreds of times cleaner plenty doesn't need  to use pesticides because there are no bugs I   promise to give a fair shot to all of the other  claims of vertical farming but I have to stop   this one in its tracks because that idea that  you can exclude or eliminate pests altogether   just is wrong it's something that has been  tried in the real world for many many years   in controlled environment Agriculture and it just  hasn't happened you still no matter how tight the   grow room no matter how tight the growing space  you still get pests to get big outbreaks and what   they basically have to end up doing is managing it  by the introduction of beneficial insects to try   to manage the levels of pests not to eliminate  them entirely so that's just well I'm going to   rate that one as false but that's what I want to  do with the claims of vertical farming the truth   is it's a valid system there are places where  this actually makes a lot of sense and I want   to go through those in this video today but what  probably has to happen is those Sky High claims   of vertical farming have to be brought back down  to earth and that's what I intend to do in this   video I think it's going to be useful for the rest  of the video to divide vertical farming into two   general areas the first one is the one that uses  sunlight like traditional field agriculture or   like modern Greenhouse agriculture this one uses  the sun uses the seasons doesn't pretend they   don't exist the other one is more like a grow  up a grow room where they enclose it and they   put in completely artificial LED lights and try  to control the environment entirely and although   both can be called vertical farming systems they  are quite different from each other and so I'm   going to treat them in separate sections first I'm  going to talk about those that use sunlight as a   gardener as a professional grower my experience  has all been with systems that take advantage of   the Sun and I have to say right up front almost  if you have the choice why wouldn't you use the   sun it's a giant free source of light energy tuned  in exactly to what your plants want and need and   it also provides a big bump up and head start on  any heating needs that you may have in growing   those plants so if you've got this big resource  free ready to use abundant why wouldn't you just   go ahead and use it directly instead of trying to  find a way to capture energy someplace else pump   it in transform it into LED lighting now let me  just say that these systems that I'm talking about   big greenhouses don't always go entirely without  manipulating the seasons they don't just follow   the Sun or follow the seasons oftentimes they will  add supplemental lighting they sometimes will add   supplemental heat to stretch those Seasons but  very rarely will you find a grower who entirely   ignores them and in our local area here the Lower  Mainland of the Fraser Valley has a big industry   of pepper Growers tomato Growers cucumber Growers  the big veggie Growers have these tall greenhouses   and they don't ignore the sun they actually have  a cycle that kind of follows when light is most   abundant they start their cycle before it's very  abundant when the plants are quite small they put   them in as seedlings and that happens usually in  January or February light levels are still low   but they can handle it because there's no canopy  of plants up above it by the time they've grown   in grown up put on lots of leaves they get a  giant head start on the season going all the   way through until the following say November when  light levels have dropped down below what's useful   for the plants they have the big canopy they have  the mature plants they take the plants down they   clean that growing environment give it a little  rest do all their maintenance and they start back   up again in January or February it's a growing  cycle that makes almost full use of that entire   space throughout the sea Seasons but doesn't fight  against the Heat and the light requirements that   you would need in the winter when that sunlight  is at its brightest it actually is more light   than most plants can use and I want to put some  values to this some number values to this although   everybody uses different numbers strangely to  uh to measure light but I'm just going to put   it in lumens here and just say that a day that  has or when you're delivering say a hundred and   thirty thousand lumens onto the crop that's more  than most any crop can use fully itself a plant   reaches what it's called its saturation point when  more light doesn't create more photosynthesis on   tomatoes that might be somewhere around a hundred  thousand lumens it's pretty high actually because   tomatoes generally have that canopy of leaves  corn would be the same thing where they build   this canopy of leaves around themselves and that  intense light can try to penetrate all the way   down so it can use about a hundred thousand lumens  of it let's say on the other hand something that   is low growing leafy greens say something like  oh lettuce or strawberries something that doesn't   have a large canopy that's actually more light  than the plant could use and this is the premise   for some of these vertical farming systems that  use the sunlight they kind of go with the idea   that well traditionally Market gardeners what  they would have done to deal with that abundance   of light is they would have grown very tightly  together and planted those crops and harvested   those crops in quick succession trying to manage  it but they can't get the density that you can   get with a vertical farming system I'm going to  show you some video now from Sky greens Canada   we're kind enough to show me their system how it  is that they pack so many more plants into that   same amount of space and it starts with the fact  that they do go vertical they have a 30 foot Tower   and on that 30 foot Tower they have 38 trays if my  math is right that's 19 on each side and think of   those trays as filled up with say something like  lettuce now the ones at the Top If You Think from   the very start are getting far more light than  the ones on the bottom but that's not the way   they leave it because they use a water powered  pump they use their pump to turn this the to   rotate these trays around this thing think of it  like a ferris wheel or the one on the bottom then   moves around the top and then returns back to the  bottom so they all get their time in the Sun and   so for a while they get intense sunlight but then  they're dropped back down into a dappled shade in   the lower areas of the greenhouse they can fit far  more plants into the same amount of space now I   have some figures based on strawberry density and  how many they can fit into their system and it is   far more than you would get from traditional ways  of laying out strawberries in your Greenhouse well   as you can see the numbers add up or multiply  out in so far as you can fit in 20 times more   strawberries in this tower system than you would  ever fit by using even the modern efficient gutter   systems now 20 times more strawberry sounds pretty  good but now let's talk about light because he may   not have enough light at that point if you go that  dense to get the same amount of yield remember   those other systems are already maximized for  yield per square foot now going back to the number   I talked about before a bright clear day can give  you 100 to 130 000 Lux of energy coming down on   your crop and strawberries have a light saturation  Point somewhere in the range of about 40   000 Lux so you're getting about three times as  much light as the plant needs and by stacking   it like that now you're fitting in 20 times as  much for that you can see there's a deficit there   you can see that you might have to make up the  difference by adding supplemental light now here's   where it comes in the idea and the main concept of  vertical farming is that space is tight especially   in urban spaces but also well anywhere I mean land  is not free if you have land and you're using it   for agriculture you may want to pack in as much  plants as you can per square foot greenhouses   are not free greenhouses once you've already put  in the the investment to put in a Big Greenhouse   you're controlling the heat you're controlling  the humidity you're controlling that environment   might it make sense just pack in more plants even  if it means you have to supplement with artificial   light it could but it's one of those things you'll  have to do with real calculations you'd have to   sit down with the supplier of the of the vertical  farming system you'd have to sit down with your   expected yields per plant and work out a real  financial plan around this but I I can see a path   to making higher density work for you the next  topic I really wanted to talk about is which crops   this actually could make sense for and I think  I want to start by debunking the question about   whether cro the other crops the crops that are not  in vertical farming systems are actually flat so   think about when you first plant corn in a field  okay now of course at that point if you look at   the at the ground and the sun coming down there's  a ton of wasted space on there the seedlings are   tiny and there's a lot of room in between them but  very very quickly that corn will grow upwards and   it becomes a little more vertical and in fact  what it will do is it will fill in all of the   space between those corn seedlings with leaves and  it will take full advantage of that sunlight so   again if you have that 100 130 000 lumens of light  coming down on the plants they shade all the lower   leaves down to where that sunlight has to work  hard to penetrate that canopy and the plant soaks   it all up in his power hooks it's very useful  so for a lot of cereal and grain crops that's   why places like Canada and Ukraine and these  higher latitudes with a longer days during summer   actually have such amazing yields on these grain  crops is because the plants are very very good at   taking advantage of all that intense sunlight over  such a long period so it certainly is not a flat   crop as as for as far as vertical goes it's quite  vertical it it grows up and it absorbs all of the   light over the distance that before it hits  the ground or substantially all of that light   likewise if you looked at tomatoes and I've used  that example already is it would make no sense to   take tomatoes and put them in a vertical cropping  system the tomatoes will Vine up and they'll reach   high heights themselves and in fact in most tomato  growing systems they're stripping off leaves from   the lower parts of the plants because there's so  little light reaching the bottom of the greenhouse   so tomatoes are already vertical likewise you're  not going to try this with something like almond   trees or avocado trees there's some things that  just make no common sense insofar as these plants   are already quite vertical and use up all of the  light I also wanted to say just as an aside here   that many Greenhouse Growers already without any  fancy vertical systems will have a plant canopy   across the bottom and let's say if you're growing  annuals like I saw over at Clearview they had the   annual baskets or the hanging baskets up higher  in the rafters of the greenhouse so that would   be considered well I guess a low-tech vertical  system where you have a crop up above and it's   shading a little bit and there's a crop down below  taking advantage of the leftover light so how how   unvertical are crops already is the first thing I  would ask there and then what are useful in these   vertical cropping systems and so far the things  that they have really focused in on the things   that have actually made it into commercial  applications are things like lettuce and   leafy greens herbs microgreens those are the main  strawberries it's another one so again these very   low profile things that they're going to try to  split the light in between underneath the sunlight   now I did have a good interview with Bob Holm from  Sky greens Canada he's the CEO there and he talked   a little bit more about the kinds of crops you  can put on this and it's a very common sense guy   about what makes sense in that and some other  things that he mentioned to me Beyond just what   I said in terms of leafy greens and herbs but he  also talked about animal fodder and that's almost   like a microgreens application you showed me a  video where they've grown say barley fodder up   to a certain height because it doesn't grow micro  greens you typically just about only Sprout them   and then and and then take and then Harvest them  straight away with these ones you would grow the   microgreens to a higher height and then feed  them on and of course now I'm going to treat   you to a piece of video of Bison eating those  micro green trays or the the fodder trays which   I think is actually where else you're going to  see that so that's kind of cool yeah we've we've   been growing everything in there from beets to all  all the herbs the Basils The Parsley Cilantros all   those things are great and you know what there's  a short supply of that stuff so especially in   the winter it's a big Supply so I talk to people  like when you're looking at setting up a vertical   Farm I look at what what is your Market you  know what do you guys got in your area like   and then what can you sell and how much can you  sell and then let's build a grow room around that   and so I've had a lot of discussions with  Cisco and they want things like arugula   parsley Cilantros they do not want any more  micro greens like there's just too much of   that out there you know there's a lot of guys  doing cucumbers Tomatoes which doesn't really   work in a vertical Farm because they're tall  crops already yeah so yes we've got to stick   to something a little shorter I mean the Cannabis  guys can do it too if they're doing their clones   but you're not going to get the end results in  there but they're great for clones because you   can put so many in a row he also brought up  an application of using it for Forest Nursery   there's a forest nurseries that grow little trees  and of course these are young and they don't need   tons and tons of light but they the space I  mean if you pack these into a greenhouse and   you're trying to fill a greenhouse with all of  these it just takes a ton a ton of space and if   you put them into the vertical farming system  you can pack far more seedlings into a smaller   space and that's something that they're trialling  right now so I think he envisions this as being   uh as people apply their imagination and their own  crops to it that people can find things that this   works for obviously they're not going to go to  the extreme examples of trees and field crops like   wheat and Grains although you know if you listen  to the hype of the um of the vertical farming   industry that's almost exactly what they're saying  is that this could work for any crop so far I've   talked a lot about the sunlight based systems  because I think they have the best shot of being   viable at least over the short term but there are  producers even today who are using fully enclosed   dark grow spaces that are supplemented entirely  by artificial light and that they're using those   to produce mainly micro greens and small salad  greens and it's no mistake that they've chosen   those crops as their proof of concept the thing  about micro greens is that a lot of the energy   that those plants need are already stored in the  seed they've already that was already stored by   the mother plant in the field in the past growing  season they come in with all that chemical ready   to go and the growing cycle is relatively short  if you sprout micro greens at first you don't even   need any sunlight all you need is a little bit of  warmth a little bit of moisture or humidity and   these plants will start up they'll Sprout and  they'll get to a couple of inches with almost   no light at all if you give them just a minimal  amount of light they'll start to green anyway if   you give them then on the next five to seven days  of bright light that crop is ready for Harvest so   this is why this crop can make particular sense  in that system is that you don't have an extended   period of time that you're having to support  it under artificial lights here's the problem   generally with this and it's not just a problem  of current technology it's a problem of energy and   physics is that if you're trying to push that much  energy into that much space what they estimate is   that a fully enclosed facility may need five and  a half acres of solar panels to create one acre   of indoor Farm wow that's that's a lot of  footprint for a system that's trying to reduce   the footprint of Agriculture is I guess what I'm  going to say so that's why these producers have   done a great job of focusing on these very short  crops once again microgreens are very short baby   leafy greens or salad greens are also a very  short crop but how do you translate this into   big bulk crops like say a potato which might take  a hundred days to produce a crop I don't want to   know what the price of that potato might be and  this is where we bump up against the economics   of the situation because money isn't just an  artificial way that we keep score it's also a   way that you can compare one use of resources  against another use of resources and when you   talk about these centralized Warehouse factory  farms that use artificial light completely the   startup costs on some of those can be in the range  of a hundred million dollars or more and many of   these companies like the one you saw in the second  clip are still being built under Tech evaluations   they haven't had their IPO yet we have no idea if  they have any path towards profitability and some   tech companies like uber for instance can go many  many years without ever posting a profit and you   don't know the viability of their system because  of that so that's the problem with this and let's   talk about a real world example because real  world is where it actually makes some sense here   is I have an example a case study which is the  Cannabis industry and the Cannabis industry was   a fully indoor system I'm not going to say fully  indoor but a good portion of the producers here   in Canada and across North America had to have  some of their production let's say underground   or undercover for a length of time due to other  pressures to do with law enforcement and so on   but recently that has changed and so a lot of  those big Warehouse operators the big cannabis   producers are suddenly up against competition  from more efficient greenhouse-based operations   and the largest producers of cannabis now the  largest production facilities have moved over to   greenhouse and of the top 10 cannabis producers  in North America today most of them you'll see   have started to move into outdoor and Greenhouse  operations from previously being a fully Ware host   and and artificial light system in many cases so  this gives you some idea of where the economics   of this lie so I want to return to the outdoor  applications or rather the greenhouse applications   just for my final thoughts on the cost benefit  analysis of vertical farming because I really   think there can be a case made for it but you  really have to have a fair comparison Apples to   Apples and I wanted to show you some footage from  a place called little leaf farms and this place   is in New England it produces lettuce so that's an  Apples to Apples comparison to what most vertical   Farmers or many vertical Farms are using but  they're not using an up and down system they   go flat but they go high intensity and you can  see here that they've just gone with very little   spacing they're moving through this crop very very  quickly they're using high technology and all of   the benefits that are talked about with vertical  farming are the same benefits that they're going   to talk about they're going to say that their  plants are grown hydroponically yes they are they   use less water absolutely in fact I want to tackle  this one second is to say that when you compare it   to field agricultural or any drain to waste system  of course modern agriculture modern Greenhouse   systems are going to have the advantage any place  where you are feeding with water and reclaiming   that water and recirculating it you're going to  have 90 95 percent less water use than you would   if you're just overhead sprinkling out in a field  so the fair comparison isn't between vertical   and horizontal it's between field Agriculture  and controlled agriculture which is actually   a completely different thing than what they're  saying in these videos so again going back to this   little leaf Farm they have all of the benefits  of these vertical farming systems but they are   not using vertical space and it's a brand new  facility high tech and yielding tons of lettuce   so there's ways to succeed both with vertical  farming like Sky greens and in their pilot   project in Singapore and there's ways to succeed  horizontal you really have to do a cost benefit   analysis is the added complexity of having moving  Parts in your system actually get you more yield   or enough more yield that it justifies the extra  cost because there is going to be costs related   to that infrastructure and that maintenance of all  of these moving parts and as for those centralized   fully enclosed Factory style artificial light  Farms I can see that approach making some sense   for microgreens and solid greens but it's far  more energy intensive at least at this stage   that it would make sense for a wide range of  crops and even though that seems to be the   vision of vertical farming is try to get all of  these crops Under One Roof and very intensive and   removed from nature and I guess I have a sort  of a bias or a thing against trying to remove   nature from the equation I think there are ways  where you can find a way to make your farming and   your agriculture follow the seasons interact with  nature you may manipulate nature but not to remove   it entirely from the equation when you get into  a completely controlled environment um you know   hey best luck to them if they can make it work  but it feels a bit like the feedlot model where   you take all the cows and don't don't pasture them  because that's going to hurt the environment but   rather move them into a feed lot in a more a more  centralized and more intensive kind of raising of   cattle when what we're seeing in the restorative  agriculture circles is that actually grazing can   make sense and I think the same thing can be said  for agriculture is that you can find a way to make   this more consistent with the natural environment  and to invite the seasons in and to make sense of   it and so far that seems to be the direction  it's going that's all the thoughts I have for   you on vertical farming I hope you found this  an interesting discussion certainly I'm open to   any of your questions or comments on this because  there's certainly people who know more about this   than I do you can drop those into the comments  below the video I'll see what I can do to help

2022-11-26

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