Major steps towards better, sustainable and affordable food production free of environmental challenges have been taken, with the "world's first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale" opening in Richmond, VA. It's backed by an international team of scientists that see this new…
This is pure vibes and I am begging to be corrected, but these vertical farms seem like a techbro grift. They look like they're super high maintenance and resource intensive and hard to scale. Like how much energy does all that artifical lighting use, the watering solution, the pollination solution. Claims like this just makes my grift-o-meter beep: "pollination of plants has also been engineered to be more efficient than bees.". And 0 explanation how, why or in what way, it's just "more efficient than bees" .
Why does it need so much artifical stuff are we really that desperate for arable land? If we are I've got a way cooler solution and it's the comms name. And if we aren't, there are enough other reasons.
Huh? Why do we need to do that? Just seems like Futurology to me..
I'm not very well versed in the vertical farming concept. However I thought it was an idea worth considering to improve climate resiliency. I should read up more studies on the topic.
I guess I just don't understand what problem this is solving?
Land use and transportation costs/emissions would be the big two. As you can set these up in urban areas and sell the produce to the immediate area.
like I said if the amount of land is an issue I've got a better idea.
same idea would also help with emissions! Also, electrical transportation, I'm not sure that this is a reasonable way to cut down on emissions caused by transporting produce?
You've heard of clover honey and acacia honey, now try strawberry honey
And I would suspect vertical farming would be viable if they did it in the windows of existing buildings. But that's just windowsill gardening.
Except there are no bees, it's something more efficient!
The article doesn't mention pollination; I assume they'd rent a hive or something. There's gotta be at least one apiculture hobbyist in Richmond.
Edit: It did, I missed it.
There's a half-sentence about their solution being "more efficient" than bees
edit: it was very easy to miss