Indoor Farming: You need that - utopia.de

Indoor farming is a new form of plant cultivation, for which you need less space and neither garden nor vegetable patch.We explain to you how the concept works and what advantages and disadvantages it brings with it.

In the course of increasing population growth, we need more and more arable land to grow food.At the same time, we harm the soil through monocultures, fertilizers and pesticides and make so many land areas sterile.Rainwaling for more usable space is inam of the climate and destroys the habitat of many plant and animal species.

In order to prevent these problems, researchers are looking for: continuously for space -saving solutions for the cultivation of crops.Such a solution is indoor farming.

What is indoor farming?

As the term already reveals, the cultivation of plants during indoor farming is not outdoors, but in a closed system-i.e. a hall, a container or a greenhouse, according to the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf (HSWT) University of Applied Sciences).The plants do not get sunlight, nor wind or precipitation.To replace the sun, LEDs are used.These cannot reproduce the sunlight exactly, researchers: Inside, the intensity of the lighting can adapt specifically to the needs of specific plant species.

Other factors such as temperature, air humidity and irrigation are also regulated in indoor farming of automated systems.Scientists use for irrigation: internal nutritional solutions that contain not only water but all important nutrients.You can also customize these to the respective plant species.

Indoor farming often occurs in combination with vertical farming.Vertical farming means that plants are grown on top of each other in several layers.This succeeds through so -called shelf beds.This concept is particularly useful for Indoor Farming: after all, operators can use the area of a hall to be optimally used inside.In addition, automated systems can prevent some plants from getting too little LED light.In this way, many shelf beds can rotate and alternately provide the plants the required light time.You can find out more about this here: Green stacking: How Vertical Farms change agriculture.

Indoor farming: these are the advantages

According to HSWT, growing plants through indoor farming brings various advantages:

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Cultivation without nature: the disadvantages

With all the ecological advantages, the new concept of agriculture also has disadvantages, according to the HSWT:

Indoor Farming: Projects in large and small

Companies are already using indoor farming for food production.For example, the company Aerofarms in New Jersey in the USA is building 900 tons of vegetables using indoor and vertical farming to 6.500 square meters.The vegetables grow all year round on twelve floors in a former steel factory.So the company manages to achieve a yield that, unlike conventional agriculture, is 390 times higher.

The Berlin company Infarm has integrated Indoor Farming into the offer of a supermarket.Plants grow in two -meter -high glass showcases.The company controls lighting, irrigation and other factors via a cloud -based platform.Employees come to plant and harvest: regularly in the branch in the inside.The supermarket can then offer the harvested vegetables directly for sale.So far, mushrooms, herbs, types of salads and Microgreens have been part of the range.

Indoor farming at home

With the help of certain tools, you can also implement Indoor Farming on a small scale in your own apartment.We introduce you to some products in more detail:

Conclusion and outlook

So will our food only come from indoor and vertical farming systems in the future?According to the researcher: this will not be the case inside.Instead, a balance of field and gardening is needed, greenhouses and the new plant cultivation without natural sunlight.In this way, every concept brings its own advantages and disadvantages.Only in interaction can it possible to meet the challenges of population growth and the climate crisis.

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Keywords: Nutrition knew how agriculture planting