AeroFarms - No More Farmers Tan

  ~ Food ~ 

Easiest click-bait headline of all time. Every living creature needs it. For some it’s a profession, for many it’s what we build our daily schedules around, and for some it’s even a fetish. Though, the growing process or rather the agriculture industry as a whole, outside of the end-product, is seldom spoken about. We know there are farms all around the world for vegetables, grains, meat, fish, avocados, and the like, but we are less aware of the global issues that traditional agricultural practices are facing or are creating.

Unfortunately, as per experts from the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, nearly 33 per cent of the world’s arable land has been lost to erosion or pollution in the last 40 years.[1] And with the exponential population increase, the need for more food is a necessity. That demand is being met in the Mecca of the US, the melting pot of innovation, my home state of New Jersey.

When you think of Newark, New Jersey you probably think of the clean air, mountain views, and top-notch airport. Now you can add the future of farming to that list. In come the bad boys of modern agriculture, AeroFarms: a developer of aeroponic systems to grow leafy greens at high-yield densities in urban vertical farms, AeroFarms is attempting to take over modern agriculture.

The technology behind Aerofarms is their patented aeroponic growing system. Now for clarity, aeroponics is the process of growing plants without soil; instead, they’re grown in the air or in a mist environment. This isn’t the indoor growing you will see at your weed dealer’s place. When you look at the AeroFarms website you will see “smart” everything. Smart lights, smart pest management, smart nutrition, smart data, smart people and so on. Each part of the process is broken down to an exact science. As in having sensors in their growing trays which collect 130,000 data points, allowing them to optimize conditions for each plant type.

So let’s get to the meat of the topic. What problems is AeroFarms solving by utilizing an aeroponics process, vertical layout, data capturing, reusable substrate, and everything else they do? A blatant advantage is the ability to produce more food with less land usage. The company doesn’t need vast arable land to produce product. Their production facility is inside a warehouse where they maximize the space by building up and not out. Now take the volatility of weather, temperature, and light out of the equation by maintaining complete control over those factors, and the company has year-round stable production with a quicker growing cycle. It’s also more efficient in terms of water usage – AeroFarms claims to be able to use 95% less water than field farming. They still use water but their “closed loop” mist system actually recycles the water with little to no waste. 

The benefits don’t stop with land and water efficiency. You’ve probably seen your dad in his white New Balances and jean shorts wreaking absolute mayhem on your yard with Roundup spray. You’ve also probably heard in the news of the hundreds of millions of dollars Monsanto is being ordered to pay in lawsuits due to the cancer-causing chemicals used in its Roundup spray. The company has no need for harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides, eliminating the poisonous runoff into water sources we see from conventional farming practices. Not using pesticides also means you don’t need to waste water washing the product at home. Voila—even less water consumption. 

As the above points out, AeroFarms is wildly efficient in terms of water and land usage. The company also dipped its toes into recycling efficiency. They show-off their pro-sea turtle side by tackling plastic waste. Since they don’t use soil they need some other medium for seeding, growing, and harvesting. They developed a patented reusable cloth which is made out of BPA-free, post-consumer recycled plastic. The company also assures that the cloth can be fully sanitized and reseeded with zero contamination risk. 

Let’s cap it off with one last benefit. When you go to the grocery store everything you are looking for is somewhere to be found in that single location, but all of those products aren’t coming from the farm out back. A huge polluting factor in agriculture is the supply chain: getting the product harvested, bagged, and to the store. AeroFarms provides fresh, local produce, side-stepping the carbon-emitting supply chains we currently deal with. Scale this production process globally and fresh produce can be had anywhere regardless of geography, climate, and terrain.  

So, game-time walkthrough: what are we looking at? Dramatic decrease in land usage. Boom. Significantly less water usage. Boom. No chemical runoff. Boom. No negative production effects from weather. Boom. Removes plastic  from the waste stream. Boom. Cuts traditional CO2 emitting supply chain. Boom. 

I’m aware of one major con that is brought up. Energy usage. Relying on artificial lighting and climate control systems is extremely energy intensive. This is a costly downside – currently. With the continued agriculture tech innovations and shift into clean energy, this will be a problem of the past. Multiple companies are surfacing with answers and I will happily shed light on them here.

*Disclaimer: Kairos Tech Coverage is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with any other company, agency or government agency. All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders.

[1] “Soil Loss: an Unfolding Global Disaster – Grantham Centre Briefing Note • Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures.” Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, 20 Jan. 2020, grantham.sheffield.ac.uk/soil-loss-an-unfolding-global-disaster/.