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  • You can take up way less square footage for the same amount of production
  • You can eliminate the need for pesticides
  • You can power the farms from renewable energy
  • You can significantly increase growing efficiency
  • You can significantly increase the nutritional value of plants

I see major opportunity in vertical farming due to these reasons. What do you guys think? Will we see vertical farming taking over the agricultural industry?

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  • $\begingroup$ Hi Will, welcome to SE. IMHO this question is teetering on the edge of on/off topic here. Can I suggest having a read of earthscience.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1587/39, and trying to focus your question to the parts that are about earth science rather than the parts that are about agricultural technique? (You can hit "edit" to edit the question) $\endgroup$ May 28, 2019 at 22:49

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As our planet gets warmer less area will be avaliable for farming so vertical farming will be needed to supply food for a growing population.

Vertical farming will not replace traditional farming but it will be an addition to this.

Vertical farming can be effective in growing food by using less energy,We can use only the part of the light spectrum that plants need(UV-Blue-Red-IR)And avoid producing un needed green light(plants do not use the green part of the spectrum).

The use of water can be a lot lower in vertical farming as any evaporated water can be captured and recycled.

The need of plant nutrients can be reduced significantly,One only needs to add the nutrients the plants remove(so no runoff of nutrients at all).

The use of pesticides can be close to eliminated and this is good news for insects that are needed in the production of food and for the consumers of the food.

A very large part of the water used in prossesing of the product can be recycled and used to create more food,So less water will be wasted.

A lot of the organic waste can be used as animal feed directly(Roots stems and flowers material not usable for human consumption).

So the answer to your question is yes there is potential in doing this,How large potential there realy is i do not know but i think it might be significant.

The prosess uses more CO2 than it releases(if renewable energy is used) so it is cleaner for the environment,It can be done anywhere so less emission of CO2 during transport to the consumers.

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    $\begingroup$ Vertical farming is also used heavily in mushroom production, which does not require sunlight. $\endgroup$
    – John
    May 29, 2019 at 13:08
  • $\begingroup$ @John i know little about mushroom production and the effect on the environment,i try to keep my answer here on topic for this site and fokus on the positive effect vertical farming can have on water use and in limiting CO2 production.i simply know too little about mushroom production to includet it into my answer. $\endgroup$ May 29, 2019 at 16:00

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