Apr 26, 2022
Editor’s Note: This article accurately states that urban farming continues to lag behind its potential to disrupt the food system. We need to see more innovation and efforts being made to further the agricultural industry. Climate change is likely to only worsen, and with it, so is the burden on our food system. Technology poses itself as an interesting solution in the mix. As stated in ‘4 New Trends Shaping The Future Of Urban Agriculture In 2022,’ we need to see more cities push urban agriculture policy initiatives forward, and we need to see more partnerships getting formed to enable this level of change.
CONTENT SOURCED FROM DIRT TO DINNER
Written By Tim Sprinkle
Population growth, more food production, loss of arable land, water resources, and CO2 emission concerns are all on the forefront of food producers.
Given the fact that the U.N. predicts that 86% of the developed world’s population will live in cities by 2050, shifting food production to urban centers would seemingly solve all of these problems. Vertical farms have begun to sprout up like skyscrapers, packing massive production scale into an area as compact as a city block. While today, they are mostly used for microgreens, optimism prevails where existing rooftops could be repurposed to grow row crops. Vacant lot spaces could find a new use feeding the population.
According to Pitchbook, about $250 million has been invested in the top 25 Indoor Farms and related technologies. Environmental sustainability is a draw for impact investors. AeroFarms has four farms in Newark, New Jersey, one of which is the largest in the world: 70,000 feet and harvests up to 2 million pounds per year using 95% less water than field farming. Another contender, Gotham Greens, supplies Whole Foods in the New York City metro area with pesticide-free produce from their rooftop greenhouses.
Consider the potential impact:
Urban farms can be set up next to its consumers, eliminating greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation and storage
They take up far less space than traditional, land-based farms, enabling them to create far more end product per acre and potentially making up for the loss of arable land
They can reduce the need for pesticides, eliminate the risk of extreme weather, and be built to conserve water and other traditional inputs
They can be built effectively anywhere people live, bringing high-quality, nutritious food to growing communities all over the world, no matter the climate or land quality
A Promise Delayed
At least that’s the theory.
But, in reality, urban farming continues to lag behind its potential to disrupt the food system due to a range of shortcomings. Firstly, we eat more than just lettuce. Indoor farming is excellent for tasty greens, but expanding to staples in our diet, like fruits and vegetables will be tough with the technology that exists today.
And does this method actually reduce farming’s carbon footprint? Vertical farming operations might actually be more resource-intensive than outdoor production, given their reliance on artificial lights, water distribution, and climate control.
That’s on top of the fact that most urban farmers still can’t make a living at it, according to a 2016 study published in the British Food Journal.
As of today, urban farming – particularly the vertical farms that are envisioned to occupy skyscrapers and rooftops all over the world – is too expensive, too resource-intensive and too niche to truly reach its potential as a revolutionary new form of agriculture.
The Future of Food?
Could new technologies rebalance this equation and bring urban farms into wider use?
That’s the hope of a new generation of farmers and innovators working on ways to bring the power of Silicon Valley to the food we all eat, whether it is grown on an outdoor farm or in a warehouse. These efforts include everything from combining big data analytics and machine learning with genome editing to design better crops; creating robots that can pick apples, raspberries and other foods; and even using drones to gather insights that farmers and ranchers can use to more accurately plan and manage their facilities.
These new capabilities include:
Big Data Analytics: “Leaders in the agriculture industry have begun to use machine learning as a competitive advantage,” says Yochay Ettun, CEO and co-founder of cnvrg.io, a startup platform that is working to help data scientists manage and build machine learning models. For food producers, this has the potential to improve efficiency by offering everything from more accurate crop yield prediction to species recognition.
“Machine learning has the ability to disrupt every industry, from agriculture to finance to travel. If society continues to invest and support its data science teams even in the agriculture industry there can be changes as drastic as the industrial revolution.”
– Yochay Ettun, cnvrg.io CEO & Co-Founder
The Internet of Things (IoT) is also making inroads in the controlled environment of indoor agriculture, in part because there is so much about farming that’s universal. From temperature to water, to nutrients, humidity and more, every single farm or indoor operation is managing the same seven to 10 different functions. The only difference is the scale of what they’re doing.
IoT can bring any scale down to size, adding in automation features that help small operators scale.
