Vertical Farming: A silent Revolution in Agriculture

News : Vertical Farming is emerging as a silent revolution in agricultural production sector.

Facts:

About Vertical Farming:

• Vertical Farming is the process of growing agricultural crops in vertical stacks, mostly in a controlled environment.
• Under Vertical Farming,the plants are grown indoors with or without soil. This protects the crops from incessant rains, unruly winds and dry climate.
• The crop yield in vertical farming is also more than traditional farming as it adopts two major farming techniques namely hydroponics and aeroponics.
• Some common choices of structures to house vertical farming systems include buildings, shipping containers, underground tunnels and abandoned mine shafts.

Need of Vertical Farming:

• According to the United Nations, the global population is to reach 10 billion by 2050 and therefore food production should increase by 70%.
• Hence,there is a need for technological innovation in the farming process and Vertical farming is one among those innovations.

Advantages of Vertical Farming:

• It offers a plan to handle future food demands
• It allows crops to grow year-round
• It uses significantly less water
• Weather doesn’t affect the crops
• More organic crops can be grown
• There is less exposure to chemicals and disease

Disadvantages of Vertical Farming:

• It could be very costly to build and economic feasibility studies haven’t yet been completed
• Pollination would be very difficult and costly
• It would involve higher labor costs
• It relies too much on technology and one day of power loss would be devastating.

Status of Vertical Farming in India:

• In India Vertical Farming has been introduced in the year 2019. 
• Indian Institute of Agriculture Research(ICAR) is working on techniques and adaptations to introduce in the market.However,it has still not found its application at a wider level.

Additional information:

About Hydroponics and Aeroponics:

• Hydroponics is the technique of growing plants without soil by using water solvent which consists of mineral nutrients.
• On the other hand,Aeroponics is a farming method where plants are grown in closed or semi-closed environment with nutrients sprayed in the air.