Why Vertical Farming Won't Save the Planet

But is this man considering new energy sources for light? What about tesla technologies, maybe that is what will make vertical farming work.

If you put the same effort into trying to solve the problem instead of saying why it wouldn't work we would be in a better world.

Lots of research and predictions but 5 years has already proven he's on the wrong side of history. Water is a precious commodity in so many areas. Renewable energy sources proliferate throughout the globe. 90% of corn and soybeans go to livestock. Vertical farming continues to grow every year. He's right, no one is growing wheat, corn or soybeans indoors but let's not discount an entire movement (still in its infancy) because of that.

Change the roofing and upper walls to some sort of clear material, harnessing both the protection of being indoors and the power of the sun. Sure, the workers may need to wear sunscreen to work, but I bet my left nut it'll cut down on the energy consumption. Build vertical farms in every town and city and allow locals to buy direct, cut out the middle men 👍🏻

"He cites my papers and I cite his papers." Well, there you have it, folks. One hand washes the other. And the guy who is against GMOs loses his position at the university. I think we can see what happens. Don't fall for it. It amazes me how ignorant this professor is about saving water with vertical farming. I vertical farm in huge green houses and the sun works just fine to grow my crops. No need for grow lights. And I can tell you that the water savings is true. The water is recirculated and does not have much chance to evaporate; that's how we save a lot of water when we vertical farm. I could take this professor and prove things to him that he is denying are true. Give it up, professor; you are a drag on progress. No one I know plans to grow TREES in a vertical farm. Orchards will still be needed on land, but all vegetables, berries, spices, herbs, etc. can and will be grown in vertical farms whether YOU like it or not, professor. The world is progressing. We'd love to have you progress as well. One reason professors may be against this is their interests... such as pesticide and herbicide manufacturers... Monsanto comes to mind. This professor is paid to dis vertical farming; I can guarantee it. Check his bank account and where his money is coming from. Hello, Monsanto and all the other companies that produce poisons and the labs that manufacture GMOs. Progress is going to roll right over you and you're sweatin' it.

So the problem is an energy one. Solve the energy problem and vertical farming is possible.

EASY TO ANSWER: IT WORKS W CHEMICAL AND HAVE TO CARRY EM TROUGHT OCEANS

This is a dated video. Elon musk's brother is involved now, these are being built all over the world. The nutrition is so much better and the water conservation is ridiculously better. No pesticides no herbicides and we can give the habitat back to the animals

Maybe the professor could refresh the content of this video with revised data from improvements in vertical farming methods, techniques and technological advancements. The new remarks can help us all understand where have come from wherever we were back when the video was shot

This video is outdated

All outdated information.. I can't believe I endured 45 minutes of this

I'm starting a tall greenhouse using LED lights only at night. All the production will be stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Can anyone say that I'm not vertical farming? I'd sure like to pick your brain about a lot of this. It sounds like I may be able to beat the standard vertical farm according to some of these assumptions.

I'm a simple man. I see Bruce Bugbee, I instantly click.

An interesting discussion; however, nowadays the numbers he's quoting are fairly outdated. We've made big strides in LED lighting technology, and understanding more about the specific wavelengths of light that plants need, among other things. He also makes a lot of broad generalizations which just don't make sense- The amount of water, light and nutrients that you need to grow a head of lettuce are vastly different than what you need to grow an ear of corn. And making the assumption that the power generation will continue to come from fossil fuels and coal is so wildly short-sighted that even that alone brings his entire prediction into question. It'd be more accurate to title this video as "Why vertical farming ISN'T saving the planet (as of 2015)", rather than why it won't. Everything in this video is wildly short-sighted, and almost completely outdated even 7 years later.

It's especially grating that he dances around the biggest elephant in the room- It doesn't matter how efficient vertical farming is, if all of your traditionally farmed crops are dead due to pests, bad weather conditions, or other unforeseen circumstances. This is purely an anecdotal example but; where I live, we have experienced a significant amount of cloud cover the past few months, and my outdoor garden is struggling. Meanwhile, the exact same types of plants that I have inside, beneath grow lights and are being grown hydroponically are flourishing. It doesn't matter how much money you can save if the end result is that everyone dies of starvation.

The direction of logical points made by this man in this lecture is delusional to me. Even the title has pessimistic energy to it. Having fear of losing business from traditional farms shouldn't be met with the actual forward city innovations that we NEED for current and future generations. It's a GOOD thing that we will have cheaper produce grown in cities - I mean, you might as well call yourself an un-innovator if you're going to speak against current human progress. Indoor farming placed within cities can even benefit medical industries' scientific breakthroughs to guide us towards holistic medicines/treatments. We NEED vertical farming and it should not be seen as combative with traditional land farming. Also, having robotics within agriculture should not be seen as a threat to the agricultural workforce - they are on the same team of producing enough for the present population.

Very compelling case.

400,000$ solar energy hitting an acre does not mean all that solar energy is going into conventional farming yields. Ridiculous comparison.

Huge hurdles definitely, but with due respect like the vertical farmers blowing up their productivity numbers; he is himself blowing up his numbers to make the obstacles bigger than they seem.

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think those vertical farmers are proposing to farm high density high energy crops like rice and wheat either.

Imagine, if all of our inventors were persuaded by negative know it alls. They said Nikola Tesla was a madman!

Misguided, yes not all crops will be viable for indoor growth.
There are indoor farms here in Australia that are growing tomatos in glass houses, no need for lights only use 90 to 95% less water, has a smaller footprint compared to outdoor not to mention little to no pesticides needed.

I'm so glad I eat a strictly carnivore diet. No damaging plants for me.

It was a great presentation. I have been intrigue by vertical farming due the production yield for the foot print with out knowing the exact cost of electricity/energy required so this lecture definitely provide that context in a very scientific way. He also gave detail analysis of various examples of the economic of different food groups including different energy cost of transportations for different product (whether they need refrigerated truck or not) which I really appreciate. The professor definitely looks at this situation from an energy efficiency point of view and it’s hard to argue that natural farming is a very effective use of the sun energy. He definitely wasn’t looking at this vertical farming issue from the space efficiency issue.

This video is outdated, and it's easy for scientists to claim expertise, but never place a finger to even try...

Would we have started to build 7 years ago. We now would not suffer this much.

There is one pumping and filtering system. There are multiple pv panels and vertical axis wind turbines. The lights are high efficiency led lights. The water expired from the plants is condensed from the air and reused. This creates the perfect conditions for growth and the growing time is drastically reduced resulting in increased productivity.

When we consider "harvest" of sunlight energy by a natural system, I recommend reading Mark Shepard's book "Restoration Agriculture." Here, the professor compares conentional agriculture with vertical farming -- but Mark speaks of the most food-productive systems even before human societies -- for example the savannas maintained through disturbance by megafauna. Applying this to the present day, he recommends a multi-storied system such as alley-cropping which mimics the distribution of annuals and perennials in a treed savanna. It is fairly obvious the solar harvest is superior based on exposed leaf surfaces in such a system. The challenge becomes how to harvest so much diversity -- but the inputs for the farmer (except for initial setup of the system) become lower and lower. Profit margin is carved out of drastic reduction of inputs. Harvest becomes a long-term calculus shifting from annuals to the increasing growth of the perennial system.

It won't be one solution... Amazing how people can't grasp that.

yes vertical farming is the future because a cool thing happens when you have leds and grow racks and the ability to grows millions of pounds of food in a plot of land that could only grow 1000 the anceint way in the soil and in the sun. The problem is you do not understand the plethora of other scientific acheievements that will accompany vertical farming... Ai, nuclear fusion (stfu about solar when fusion is having a damn sun on the planet... seemingly infite energy at our fingertips... i ask you... what do u think wesa gonsa dosa when wesa havsa ifinite energy??? Plot the corn in farms that eat up 505 of merica or throw it in the skyscraper in the offshore man made island?

factors u diddnt consider: what is lost during transport

u clearly do not know anything about vertical farms at all... they dont grow tomatoes ... they grow crops that have quick harvest times (microgreens which are far more nutritious than the fully grown pllant). these quickly producing crops are harvested on automated basis. the production is not 2 to 4 times the amount but hundreds greater. thank u for ur time mr i couldnt do any real thing in life so know i teach at a scum industrial-education complex .. cool

friendo u need to recalc those numbs brah my goodness. The stupendous thing u said that i am currently addressing: Tomatoes will produce 2-4 as lettuce will only produce 1-2. How is it that youve manage to calculate out that more tomatoes can be grown indoor and vertically than lettuce, a crop that can be grown in shleves stacking tens of layers on top of each other. thx 4 ur time and 4 wasting mine. also recalc ur solar coverage because the panels have improved in these 7 years and in 7 more they will be further improved. Imagine if they become 4x in efficiency. Now we only need about 1 acre of solar panel for 1 acre of farm which is great because 1 acre buildings happen to have a 1 acre roof which crazy because i figured that out after learing i was the anti-einstein

during transpo food is lost. food degrades in nutrition. food degrades in taste. but no instead of utilizing the edge of modern tech lets just have ppl produce food in massive fields spraying tons of chemical fertilizers and pesticicdes that they become reliant on and also doesnt produce nearly as good food nutrition wise as the organic farming does which is what indoor vertical farms are best at because incoulation with micorbes can be done in a controlled AUTOMATED enviornemnt

u are so misinformed its hilarious ur tenured. the indoor vertical farms employ HYDROPONICS. THIS IS THE REASON IT SAVES WATER NOT SOME MUMBO JUMBO U MADE UP ABOUT CONDESING WATER.

so whats the point? seems like incoherent rambling. fact is we need more land to grow crops and vertical farming solves that problem. it doesnt matter how much energy it takes as long as its sustainable with biofuels

This hasn’t really aged well.

Vertical farming is a broad term it doesn’t necessarily mean indoors with no natural light. It just means… vertical. Maximizing yields to area. You can have a vertical farm in a greenhouse or even outside.

You spent so much time worrying about electricity then kinda glossed over fertilizer and water.

I’d really like to see these farms you speak of with in ground irrigation. Sounds super cheap and definitely won’t get in the way of tilling the soil.

Your argument was electricity is expensive but then state fresh water isn’t a problem because technology is just making it cheaper and cheaper.

No mention of damage to top soil and natural environments. You gloss over fertilizer run off. No mention of pests or deseases that can be prevented growing indoors.

Hard to believe any of your numbers when you quote “livestocks long shadow” that’s been debunked multiple times. And never held any merit if you actually looked at the numbers

Great video. Looks like rangeland beef is the way to go. I'm going to up my steak input. Once you subtract off the water content, vegetables are just too expensive. Just put a few on the side for color on the plate.

Academics are losers. Listen to industrialists. Buy $APPH, $HYFM, $AQB

Thank you Professor!

I am very grateful to know that you are my "neighbor". I live in utah- Draper city.

Now, I’m going to do my own simple math to try to avoid all the troubles you got inside my brain. Thanks professor let’s see how it goes in 2023

This was 7 years ago and now Holland is using the principles of Vertical Farming to become a major exporter of foods. Hope you have updated your data professor.

If electricity is so expensive, what about light tunnels with TIR (total internal reflection)? That could at least offset some of the total energy demand, even if it isn't sufficient to grow that crops on its own.

This guy is super wrong and will go down in history being on the wrong side of innovation. Not a huge deal, I'm sure he's a good man, but he's highly mistaken in many regards. One which is unrelated to his topic is his passing statement that people should stop eating meat because it's bad for them - that tells you a lot already.

The planet is doing just fine. It doesn't need to be saved. It can always get rid of humans if things begin to go wrong.

I am thinking of going into vertical farming/aeroponic farming and this video helps me to be extra careful about future decisions.
I think Hydroponics will be complementary to existing agriculture in the future but as long as energy is expensive and not environmentally friendly I think it is important to consider options and effectivization.
I live in Sweden with very weak sunlight most of the year and cold temperatures. But that does not mean we should import greens from across the world with less nutrition, sprayed with pesticids and other shitty chemicals to make it look fresh. The "ecological" alternatives to buy during the colder months are commonly of bad quality and lasts for a short time.
Perhaps it is better to harness as much energy naturally from the sun as possible and use LEDs and complementary when needed. The electricity for LEDs, heating and dehumidifying would be quite significant here in Sweden, but if possible to build, multiple small windturbines would help alot. The latest aeroponic devices are also completely soiless and use up to 95% less water.

honestly i feel like it would be just more convenient to automate standard farms in the first place and once we start running out of space where it's possible to farm, then go vertical

there are areas where you can't farm crops, so you can use those to gather solar energy or something like that

Yes Bruce .tell it like it is. Big respect.