FiveFarms Farming Company

How does vertical farming work?

If you google the term "vertical farming" you can find this (in my eyes) very good explanation: "Vertical farming is the practice of producing food on vertically inclined surfaces. Instead of farming vegetables and other foods on a single level, such as in a field or a greenhouse, this method produces foods in vertically stacked layers commonly integrated into other structures like a skyscraper, shipping container or repurposed warehouse. Using Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) technology, this modern idea uses indoor farming techniques. The artificial control of temperature, light, humidity, and gases makes producing foods and medicine indoor possible. (...) The primary goal of vertical farming is maximizing crops output in a limited space." - https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-you-should-know-about-vertical-farming-4144786

Right now vertical farming isn't viable enough to produce large amounts of food. Through artificial lighting and climate control, it consumes a lot of energy and is therefore only viable for a few leafy greens and herbs. In principle however, it is possible to produce nearly every plant we know inside these systems.

Why do we need it?

By 2050 the world population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion people. In order to feed all of those people we need to produce over twice the amount of food we currently do. But unfortunately we are already using over 70% of land on earth for agriculture and the production of food. In order to produce this huge amount of food with conventional agriculture we need an estimated 10 million squarekilometers of additional land - over 20% more than the country of Brazil.

And hey - ever heard of climate change? It's this big catastrophic thing we are fueling right now and we need to adapt to. Jokes aside, with climate change destroying our fields and putting more and more pressure on our agricultural lands, we need new ways of farming. And one of these new ways will be vertical farming.

What we changed

Unfortunately our design is kind of revolutionary, which is why we cannot show it to you (at least right now, but stay tuned, big things are coming).

But what we can tell you, is that we solved the main problems vertical farms are currently facing: high energy consumption, high operational and ultra-high investment costs. Through solving these basic problems of (all) current farms, we are confident to produce medium-priced, ultra-fresh, ulta-healthy and locally grown vegetables for you in the near future.

What's next for FiveFarms Farming Company

We are currently working on our second prototype and will (hopefully) go to market in summer 2021.

Built With

• crazy-ideas
• hope-for-a-better-planet
• patience