Vertical farm, Artificial Intelligence allied to sustainability
As the world’s population continues to grow, it will lead to a consequent increase in the demand for food to supply the planet, and experts believe that the solution to this problem may be vertical farming known as “vertical farming”.
It is a type of “internal” agriculture that can be carried out anywhere. It is a modular cultivation system that develops in height, vertical plantations are a type of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), i.e. agriculture in a controlled environment. This method allows cultivation inside buildings, made ad hoc, reducing the need for both water and land to be cultivated.
Although this new frontier of agriculture is advantageous at the same time, this type of cultivation has received a lot of criticism, especially related to the use of large amounts of energy to grow plants, in fact vertical farms require the maintenance of very precise environmental conditions.
San Francisco-based agro-tech start-up Plenty is the first to have solved the problem by using renewable energy on its plantations.
In addition, Plenty recently announced that it has raised $140 million from Softbank, after also raising investments from former Google president Eric Schmidt and Jeff Bezos. The products are taken care of by robots, which, thanks to the help of Artificial Intelligence, improve growth by using up to 95% less water and 99% less land.
The vertical farm has a controlled climate and looks like this: rows of plants located next to each other that grow hanging from the ceiling. Robots and AI take care of water, temperature, and light. Thanks to an LED light that “mimics the brightness of the sun”, the environment where the plants grow is optimized to ensure that they have the best crop.
Why is vertical farming more successful?
- It is not tied to the constraints of time, seasons, pests , or climate, producing GMO-free plants on a large scale.
- The water used to water the plants and which evaporates into the air is in turn reused later. The Plenty farm in San Francisco claims to have used 100% renewable energy.
According to the CEO of Plenty, the goal of the American startup would be to build a vertical farm for every city with more than a million inhabitants.
Could it be the future of agriculture and the future of world supply? Beyond all predictions, such a change must find the approval of a society ready to welcome the progress it represents. The benefits of vertical farming are tangible and respond to the growing need for sustainability in production. Will we finally be able to make technology the best ally for our SMEs?
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