now i know you wouldn't think it to look at me but i was actually born in 1969.
back then the global human population numbered about 3.6 billion and learned scholars of the day
were already warning that we'd reach the maximum sustainable population size today that number
has more than doubled and according to the united nations it's projected to hit more than 9 billion
in 2050 by which time about 70 percent of all the humans on the planet will be living in cities
here's a useless factoid for you by mid-century there'll be more people living in the city of
mumbai than in the whole of canada and that population growth and mass migration of people
will bring many challenges not least how to feed everyone without completely destroying what's left
of the planet's increasingly fragile soil one of the solutions that's been in and out of the news
for about a decade now is to stop tearing down forests to grow crops outwards across
an ever-expanding area of land and start growing upwards instead as you've probably gathered by the
title of the video it's a practice called vertical farming and the first large-scale operation was
opened at this facility called sky greens in singapore back in 2011. the industry is not
without its skeptics though it's regarded by some as a vastly expensive energy intensive pipe dream
but others point out that the exponential advances in green technologies coupled with the massive
cost reductions make those claims less relevant in the 2020s and in the last couple of years vertical
farming has started to grow extremely rapidly indeed if you'll forgive the pun so will it
work
hello and welcome to just have a think most of the food that we eat in urban
environments will likely have been delivered from vast distances via sea air road and rail
all of which adds to the burden of carbon dioxide emissions into our atmosphere
in the united states the average food item travels about 1500 miles before it reaches the
plate so growing that produce locally indoors in buildings with relatively small footprints
does seem like a very compelling idea essentially the vertical farm system is based on hydroponics
which is the technique of growing plants without soil instead the plant roots are submerged in
liquid solutions containing all the nutrients they need including nitrogen phosphorus and potassium
that means the plants can be grown in trays that can be stacked up on shelving systems
dioxide levels are carefully controlled in the enclosed airspace to ensure photosynthesis happens
right around the clock and because there's no soil in the system and the growing spaces are
hermetically sealed there's no need to use toxic pesticides to fight off predatory bugs because
those bugs simply don't exist inside the building hydroponic systems reduce water use by about
90 percent compared to traditional soil farming and vastly reduce the area of land required for a
given yield this new startup in san francisco for example run by a company called plenty reckons to
harvest the same quantity of produce from its two acre site as you'd get from a traditional
farm taking up 720 acres of land an even more futuristic growing system called aeroponics
is also gaining some traction in the industry it was originally developed by nasa as an efficient
way to grow plants in space instead of embedding plants into a nutrient-rich liquid solution
that solution is pumped as a mist into special air chambers where plants are suspended aeroponic
systems aren't widely used in vertical farming just yet but they are certainly attracting a lot
of attention and in fact the technique is already being used by a u.s company called aerofarms
they operate some of the largest vertical farms in the world like this six and a half thousand square
meter converted steel mill in newark new jersey producing a thousand tonnes of greens every year
and aerofarms recently announced plans to build a fourteen thousand square metre
state of the art facility in danville virginia which will more than double that production
volume reducing land and water use aren't the only benefits of vertical farming either
by its very nature the process is extremely reliable compared to traditional agriculture
there's no seasonality in the weather conditions so you get consistent crop production all year
round with vastly reduced harvesting time and with no compromise in flavor or quality and of course
there's no requirement for the old-fashioned back-breaking labor-intensive farming practices
or huge agricultural machinery currently needed to produce our crops today it's not
all rosy in the vertical farming garden though the industry does face major challenges predominantly
in setup costs and energy consumption as i mentioned earlier one of the major criticisms
is that these facilities use huge amounts of electricity to provide all that artificial
ultraviolet light and a great deal of power to run all the plumbing and climate control systems
this 2018 essay by dr jonathan foley who's a world-renowned environmental scientist and
executive director of project drawdown argued that powering these systems on a worldwide scale
could use even more energy than our existing high emissions food industry does today
these are perfectly reasonable concerns and operators should surely be mindful of the pitfalls
not least the fact that if all the energy for these facilities was being provided by fossil
fuels then it would undoubtedly have a major detrimental impact on our climate but led lighting
efficiency has improved remarkably even in the last couple of years while the cost of renewable
technologies like solar and wind continue to tumble like they've just fallen off a cliff
this huge new warehouse in copenhagen denmark is run jointly by the yes health group and nordic
harvest it's a 7 000 square meter hall housing 14 shelving levels of aluminium boxes stacked
full of produce it's fully automated with robots moving the boxes to optimize crop positioning
and algorithms controlling nutrient balance light availability and carbon dioxide levels twenty
thousand specialized led lights are installed here all of which are powered by renewable energy from
denmark's extensive wind farms once it's fully operational the facility will have a similar
output to aerofarms new jersey operation at a thousand tons of produce a year the other
site we briefly looked at earlier run by plenty in san francisco adds artificial intelligence-based
software to the automated robots to improve efficiencies still further and they also use
100 percent renewable energy to power their systems as a relatively new startup company plenty
has attracted plenty of attention having already received 400 million dollars of capital
from investors including softbank former google chairman eric schmidt and amazon's jeff bezos and
they've struck a deal with albertson's stores in california to supply 430 stores with fresh produce
on a smaller scale imaginative pioneers are putting hydroponic systems into underground
tunnels and vaults or even mine shafts where the temperature and humidity are already quite warm
and constant which means less energy is needed to maintain the right atmospheric conditions even
recycled shipping containers are being put to use for the purpose in fact they're becoming a very
popular low-cost option that have the advantage of being ready-made standardized modular chambers
that can be easily fitted out with led lighting hydroponic racking and smart climate control
systems fast turn crops like these are most commonly used in vertical farming but companies
like plenty are working hard on including fruit and vegetables into their production
their ceo matt barnard says our goal is to fit perishable produce into as many people's budgets
as possible year after year more and more fresh fruit and vegetable production will be localized
more people will be able to eat fresh fruit and vegetables than ever before and those people will
be amazed at how great those fruit and vegetables taste and as more research is carried out so more
and more options are being explored one of those options is aquaponics which essentially
combines plant growing with fish farming fish tanks produce nutrient-rich waste water
which gets filtered and treated to convert ammonia into nitrates that the plants can use
as they absorb the nutrients in the water the plants purify it so it can be fed back
into the fish tanks and the crops use the carbon dioxide produced by the fish too
the water in the fish tank retains heat and helps the greenhouse maintain temperature at night
to save energy they're not widely used yet but they could certainly represent a potential
solution for the future as we move away from our reliance on land and water intensive red meat
and poultry for our protein one foodstuff that has until recently been regarded as a complete
non-starter for vertical farming though is cereal crops like wheat maize and rice and that's a great
shame because the vast swathes of land currently being used to produce these staples of our diet
are mostly found in the very regions of the world that are at the severest risk from climate change
and given that these crops provide more than half of all the calories consumed by human beings today
that means we could be looking at an existential food crisis by mid-century but this latest
research published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences in august 2020
has demonstrated that wheat can be grown using vertical farming techniques and if that turns
out to be verifiable in a commercial setting then it really would be a game changer wheat is
the most widely grown crop in the world making up about 20 percent of all the calories and protein
we humans eat the research has created two growth simulation models of a 10 layer vertical farm with
optimal artificial light temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in that environment they found that
the setup could yield as much as 1940 metric tonnes of wheat per hectare of land per year
that's a massive increase on traditional wheat farming which manages just 3.2 tonnes per hectare
as always of course someone will need to stump up some serious cash
and take the financial risk of trying to make this theoretical simulation actually work commercially
in practice but let's face it that's what entrepreneurs do every day isn't it and the
investor that nails this one will find themselves with a very lucrative enterprise on their hands
in the meantime vertical farming continues to go from strength to strength facilities are cropping
up all the time not just in the united states and europe but pretty much anywhere in the world where
there are large expanding urban centres these facilities are all very impressive but i don't
think anyone is trying to pretend that vertical farming on its own will come anywhere near to
solving the dual crises of food scarcity and soil degradation that loom large as we approach 2050
nevertheless though as our way of life becomes increasingly more urbanized and more and more
people move away from their dependence on meat and towards plant-based diets these new city-based
fresh food factories look set to become an increasingly commonplace element in our everyday
lives now that you've got your own views on the subject or perhaps even some experience
of working with these systems if so then jump down to the comment section below and leave your
thoughts there that's it for this week though thanks to our fantastic patreon supporters who
help keep the channel independent and keep these videos ad free and a quick shout out to the folks
who've joined since last time with pledges of 10 dollars or more a month they are mike dewey jeff
lang david herreau brett bond mikhail johnson andrew aikman gonzalo rafat and andrew mutziger
and of course a big thank you to everyone else who's joined since last time too
you can support the channel and receive exclusive monthly news updates from me plus the chance to
have your say on future programs in monthly content polls by visiting www.patreon.com
forward slash just have a think and of course you can hugely support the channel absolutely for free
by subscribing and hitting that like button and if you want to be notified about new content each
week make sure you hit that little bell icon too subscribing couldn't be easier you just need to
click down there or on that icon there as always thanks very much for watching have a great week
and remember to just have a think see you next week