What challenges will agricultural verticalization face?

By 2050, the world population is expected to reach 9 billion. It is estimated that the grain output must be increased by 70% to meet the food demand of the global population. This means that in the next 30 years, farms must produce more food than before. However, the current amount of cultivated land is insufficient, and due to the negative impact of global deforestation (including desertification and floods), more forests cannot be cut down for farming, which intensifies the greenhouse effect. Improving production efficiency has become the only way out. Vertical agriculture is the most effective agricultural technological change besides traditional technologies such as increasing production and resisting adversity, and will surely become one of the protagonists in the future agricultural field.

Vertical agriculture is a completely controlled crop production mode, which can control the temperature, light, gas and humidity of the environment and maximize crop yield in a limited space. At the same time, it can also avoid wind and rain and climate change. Usually, very little soil and water are used to support plant growth with a precise proportion of nutrient solution.

In areas where arable land is scarce, including cities, vertical agriculture is a very efficient way of food production. It uses vertical stacking to produce crops, which occupies a small area and can also be produced in industrial spaces such as buildings and containers.

Compared with traditional farmland, vertical agriculture has many advantages.

Production can be uninterrupted throughout the year, and production plans can be arranged at will throughout the year. All products are seasonal crops. High unit output. Vertical farm technology can reasonably achieve shorter growth cycle and faster harvest, which means that more food can be planted in a much smaller space than traditional farms every year. The grain output per unit area of vertical farms can reach more than 350 times that of traditional farms. The quality and output are stable, and the industrialized production makes the harvested crops more uniform, more in line with market standards, and reduces the waste caused by "inferior products". By reducing the amount of chemical fertilizer, vertical agriculture can reduce the water consumption by 95%, and at the same time, it can reduce the demand for chemical pesticides through strict control, weather protection and prevention of infection. Shortening the supply chain, that is, the direct sale of crops produced in cities, reduces a lot of transportation distance and time, which can not only ensure the freshness of food, but also reduce the waste in the supply chain.