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.
