Vertical farms: Advantages and disadvantages
The set of large vertical vegetable crops distributed by urban centers was called vertical finance.
The concept of the vertical farm was coined in 1999 by the biologist Dickson Despommier, of the University of Columbia in New York. However, Dickson was not the first to idealize it, since in 1979 the physicist Cesare Marchetti had already developed something similar.
A vertical farm is a set space intended for the production of food and medicines in vertical layers. This practice, designed mainly for large urban centers, has been seen as the technology of the future to feed the next generations. The idea is to use automated facilities with the least possible environmental impact. The alternative is considered sustainable by its defenders. On the other hand, those who oppose the technique claim that financial costs do not offset the benefits.
In a vertical farm, in addition to the production of food and medicines in vertically stacked layers, which can be used vertically inclined surfaces and/or integrated into other structures such as skyscrapers, warehouses, and containers. The techniques used are basically reduced to agriculture and environmental control technology in agriculture (CEA), in which all environmental factors can be controlled. These facilities use the artificial control of light, environmental control (humidity, temperature, gases, etc.) and fertigation. Some vertical farms use similar techniques for greenhouses, where the use of natural sunlight can be supplemented with artificial lighting and optimized with metallic reflectors.
Atmospheric pollution
Depending on the electricity generation method used, the greenhouse vertical farm can generate more greenhouse gases than field products, largely due to the increased use of energy per kilogram of production. As vertical farms require much more energy per kilogram of production than normal greenhouses, mainly due to increased lighting, the amount of pollution generated will be much greater than that produced in the field. Therefore, the amount of pollution produced depends on the way in which the energy used in the process is generated.
Urban growth
Vertical agriculture, which is used in conjunction with other technologies and socio-economic practices, could allow cities to expand, still maintaining it as an autonomous system. This would allow large urban centers to grow without destroying forest areas. In addition, the vertical agriculture industry would provide employment to these expanding urban centers. It would also be a way to help reduce the eventual unemployment created by the dismantling of traditional farms.
Reference