The production of products such as fresh greens, tomatoes, strawberries that do not contain high calories in vertical farms is carried out successfully today. However, wheat, which was successfully grown indoors for the first time, may show itself frequently in indoor cultivation in the near future.
Pádraic Flood, spokesperson of Germany-based vertical farming company Infarm; Announcing your harvest, growing environment, crop cycle time, and success in November.
The experiment demonstrates what is possible not only for growers looking to move grain crops indoors, but also for global food security in general. Growing these staple crops indoors in areas where these crops were previously possible could benefit millions of people.
But in indoor cultivation, there are some difficulties in moving from greens to grain.
Traditional row crops such as lettuce and tomatoes, which have faster growth cycles, can be harvested at higher rates on vertical farms compared to conventional farms. However, the lack of a high harvest in cereals with longer growth cycles is not profitable, especially in the valuable real estate areas where indoor production is made in urban life.
For example, leafy greens can be produced in vertical farming at approximately 35 times more capacity than in field production with soil. Preliminary research shows that while traditional agriculture can produce about 18 kg of lettuce on a 10 m2 area, about 675 kg of lettuce can be produced in the same amount of space in a vertical farm.
Because faster growth cycles allow vertical farms to produce higher yields, slower cycles such as wheat and other grains can reduce a farm's ability to generate positive returns on its investment in a particular crop.
According to Flood, the first trials of Infarm's indoor-grown wheat were extremely encouraging. Flood said that they have a yield equal to 117 tons per hectare in scale; He pointed out that this yield is 26 times higher than in open field.
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These outdoor yields are largely dependent on the increasingly variable climate. Indoor cultivation is not affected by climatic conditions.
Temasek, a Singapore-based company, has successfully harvested indoor-grown rice. This semi-dwarf variety uses 70% less water than ground-grown rice, in addition to growing faster than full-size rice.
However, the current cost of energy makes growing grains indoors particularly risky, especially since these crops have lower prices than other typical indoor crops when they hit the market.
It's a trade-off, says Frederick Smith, a consultant for regenerative agriculture.
Smith; “You replace area-based risk with cost-based risk,” he says. "Having control of [variables like water and temperature] removes many potential risks, which makes it really appealing to investors who don't understand farming that much and want to invest in something at scale." says.
Although growing grains in a climate-controlled environment is still in the early stages of development, this point is a very important milestone. Being able to grow grain on a commercial scale could have enormous benefits for global food security.
“Rising wheat prices due to the war in Ukraine showed that it is always a good idea to source and produce wheat locally, not only in terms of cost and safety, but also in terms of kilometers traveled and carbon impact,” says Smith.
According to the USDA, vertical farming uses 95% less water and 97% less soil to produce food without pesticides.
There are several different paths we can take to strengthen the food ecosystem, including repairing our depleted soil to create a more sustainable ecosystem and using indoor farming technology to create new means of food production. The ability to grow these critical crops indoors is a big step towards the goal of global food security.