Indoor Farming The Future of Agriculture

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Indoor Farming: The future of agriculture
April 12, 2022
When you picture a farm, you probably think of a quaint little family run operation with a house, a picturesque yard, and mountains of leafy greens. Or you may imagine a huge industrial operation with millions of dollars in heavy farm equipment working in fields as far as the eye can see. 
But, there is an alternative to both: an indoor farm.
What is Indoor Farming?
The simplest possible explanation is that indoor farming is farming done inside of a building. 
It does not require large equipment like tractors or combines, and often uses less water than growing outdoors. Instead, it relies on other types of technology – like cameras and software – to grow food inside. 
While it’s not uncommon to grow plants inside of a building like a greenhouse, growing leafy greens on a small scale is more akin to gardening. What makes it indoor farming is when it’s done on a much larger scale.
Types of Indoor Farming
The biggest advantage of indoor farming is that it allows growers to optimize the growing process for higher yields. Droughts, storms, insect infestations and all the other hazards of growing outdoors are eradicated. Instead, farmers can control everything, right down to the amount of light plants receive on a minute-to-minute basis.
 
Vertical Farming
As the name implies, vertical farming is when food is grown on levels that are stacked on top of each other going upward. This type of indoor farming requires a fairly large and tall building, a lighting system, a way to make sure all the plants get the water and nutrients they need, and some type of system for monitoring the plants, like sensors or some kind of software.Farm X Bowery Farming
Vertical farms usually have several levels of plants growing at any given time. The advantage of growing plants this way is that you can grow a lot more food on a given square foot of land than if you were only growing a single layer outdoors. If you had a 25,000 square foot building, for example, vertical farming allows you to grow a lot more crops on multiple layers than if you were to only use the land to grow a single layer.
While indoor agriculture allows for better use of space when it’s done vertically, it is also quite energy intensive. In addition to the necessary infrastructure, a lot of electricity is required to run the various lights, pumps, sensors, cameras and other equipment needed to make a vertical farm run.
Many vertical farms opt to offset this high energy consumption by using as much renewable energy as possible.
Hydroponic Farming
One common way of growing food in vertical farms is hydroponic farming, which is when you grow plants without the use of soil. Instead, plants are grown in a nutrient solution mixed with water. 
In hydroponic farming, plants don’t have to “seek out” nutrients in soil. Rather, the nutrients completely surround the roots, making it much easier for them to absorb what they need. This causes the plants to grow quicker and more abundantly than if they grew in dirt. This process often leads to higher yields of fresh produce. 
While it is much cleaner than soil growing because of the lack of dirt, it is also quite energy intensive. The various pumps and other equipment needed for hydroponic systems tend to use a lot of electricity.
Source: https://bowery.co/indoor-farming/
Types of Food That Can Be Grown Indoors
While grains like barley and wheat are still grown outdoors in massive fields, many vegetables and fruits have proven to be exceptionally easy to farm indoors. 
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which is part of the United States Department of Agriculture, the following list of fresh produce is regularly grown “under protection,” which includes farming indoors:
cucumbers, 
herbs,
lettuce,
peppers,
strawberries,
tomatoes.
The Advantages of Indoor Farming
Indoor farming has many advantages over traditional farming practices.
Less land usage: As mentioned previously, a vertical farm can grow a lot more plants on a given area of land than a single outdoor field. In densely populated regions where there may not be much arid land for agriculture, this can be extremely helpful.
Urban agriculture: Indoor farms do not require a lot of open space to operate, especially vertical farms. Old, unused industrial buildings in urban areas can easily be repurposed for indoor farming. 
Growing in urban areas can potentially stymie the progression of climate change by allowing cultivated land to rewild.
Year round yields: Unhampered by weather, indoor farms can grow food 365 days per year. It’s never too cold, too snowy or too windy for plants. Growing indoors means operating within a food system that’s not at the mercy of climate change.
Decreased transportation: In addition to allowing for year-round growing, indoor agriculture also makes it possible to grow food in regions where that food doesn’t normally grow, thus helping to cut down on transportation of foods. 
Instead of hauling food into a city, crops can grow right in the middle of the city. Instead of having to ship vegetables into dry, inhospitable regions or excessively cold regions, it is now possible to grow the food right there.
By cutting down on the amount of time in transit, food stays fresher for longer periods of time and cuts down on food waste.
Healthier and more abundant crops: Being able to optimize everything about a plant’s growing cycle, from the amount of nutrients they get to the amount of light they receive, means farmers can grow healthier and more abundant crops.
More environmentally friendly: Crops grown indoors do not require pesticides or herbicides, traditionally are grown with less water, and they don’t cause fertilizer runoff, which can be detrimental to the local environment. It is true that indoor farming is energy intensive, but many indoor farming operations offset this high use of energy by taking steps to use as much renewable energy as possible.
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