Bryan Fried, President and CEO of PANGEA global technologies.
getty
Communities in the US must protect their food supplies from natural disasters. In Florida alone, the Tampa Bay Times reported that agricultural losses from Hurricane Ian could mount $1.9 billion due to destroyed crops. But the agricultural effects of natural disasters extend beyond Florida hurricanes.
California’s drought, which is a more gradual natural disaster, has resulted in associated impact costs of $1.3 billion in 2021 and $1.7 billion in 2022. And according to the Los Angeles Timesmore than 12,000 people lost their jobs during this period, more than 750,000 hectares of farmland went fallow, including vital crops such as strawberries, melons, lettuce and tomatoes.
Hail storms in the upper Midwest, fires in the west, and tornadoes in the south all contributed to further massive losses in 2022, with some areas such as Yellowstone is experiencing “500 years of events.”
Farm operators can adopt a range of practices to improve their resilience to natural disasters. These may include developing operational contingency plans and taking specific steps such as improving the soil to retain more water while maximizing biodiversity and soil health.
Another important step for the agricultural sector to cope with natural disasters is to shift more production to indoor vertical farming. These facilities can hedge against disasters to feed a growing population against climate change-induced calamities. Below are some best practices in setting up and using the technological advancements and methods available in indoor farming.
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A range of disaster-proof benefits
Vertical indoor farming operations are “disaster proof” because they are conducted in controlled environments that are protected from the elements. Drivers can build indoor farming structures in a variety of environments, even in reclaimed urban areas. When choosing a location, indoor farms built near urban centers reduce the need to store farmed produce, reduce transportation costs and reduce spoilage. You can repurpose existing buildings or build from scratch and place activities in zones with different challenging environmental conditions.
Indoor farming also produces less pollution and greenhouse gas emissions than comparable traditional farming practices. This reduces the sector’s contribution to climate change, which is a major contributor to the intensity, frequency and duration of many of the natural disasters that disrupt agriculture.
Indoor farming uses less water than traditional farming practices and significantly reduces the need for herbicides, fungicides or pesticides. Less reliance on these elements means that indoor farms can operate even in disrupted supply chain scenarios.
Making it a cost effective option
While the options are vast, the vertical farming industry is currently focusing on more expensive produce like strawberries and blueberries because the production of these crops can be easily automated and they help with profit margins. Lettuce, peppers, tomatoes and other salad varieties are some of the best crops to grow in vertical farms because they grow quickly, are reliable and are in high demand.
In addition, mint, basil, oregano, parsley, thyme and rosemary are routinely grown for retail distribution. And despite some cost hurdles, farms such as Living Greens, Vertical Roots and other operators grow leafy greens despite the increased labor requirements as many people use these vegetables every day.
Other crops being considered in the wake of the cooking oil shortage include soybean and canola (rapeseed). Typically, crops that mature in rapid seasonal cycles at a height of 6 feet or lower are best grown indoors due to the yield per square foot that can be obtained and the number of possible harvest cycles per year.
I predict there will be a shift in the types of food groups produced in vertical environments as the industry is still in its infancy. As part of overcoming today’s higher costs, we can expect automation, evolution of best practices and a growing need due to disruptions from natural disasters to continue to drive this food production alternative.
Efficiency through technology and automation
The main drivers for developing a “smart” indoor farm are achieving higher yields with less water and fertilizer consumption, and creating an automated and hands-off process that is as much as possible.
A typical automated or Internet of Things based indoor farm uses a six layer framework. This includes the physical layer (hardware facilities), network layer (internet and communications), middleware layer (IoT gateways), service layer (cloud products), analytics layer (big data, predictive analytics, etc.), and user experience layer (yield and farm experience). You can apply different smart tech solutions to each layer to reduce labor costs, increase yield and save production time. By choosing the right smart technology for your farming, you can optimize resource use to improve the commercial viability of your products. Any way you can find to use fewer resources also means less operating costs.
Water and lighting systems fall within the physical layer and are two of the first considerations. Leading options offer software-driven and automated monitoring and analysis, but require a significant upfront investment. However, once installed, lighting technology can measure soil moisture, temperature, humidity and other variables and then coordinate with the related systems and collaborators to make changes. The information produced by smart lighting sensors allows operators to perform advanced analytics, allowing them to measure yields on various parameters and review their output quarterly and annually.
I believe the key is to continue to develop and use advanced smart software systems that can bring lighting, watering and other conditions together so that growers can build a “recipe” of success and then store that information to replicate successful growing cycles based on proven past results. . Automation can also be used to plant seeds and harvest and reload beds, reducing operational costs and human error.
All these developments reduce costs and make indoor farming an increasingly viable alternative to traditional farming. By enhancing indoor farming facilities with smart technology, automation and resource-reduced practices, agricultural providers can ensure consistent production for food-insecure and disaster-prone areas.
Such operations not only help areas recover from natural disaster by ensuring stability and access to food, they also slowly reduce negative feedback loops from agriculture’s environmental impacts.
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