Seed Valley (Wageningen, Netherlands) is home to some of the world’s largest seed conglomerates. The pun refers to Silicon Valley. Unlike the busy headquarters of Google and Uber, this Valley is green, quiet, and filled with small “pilot” farms and greenhouses. You can’t get there by train – nor do Ubers. Where California is all about software and semicon, Wageningen is all about developing high-quality fruit and vegetable seeds that allow growers to produce more food in less space.
Last week, industry, researchers, and other interested parties gathered at Seed Valley for the Sky High Day. Within the research program of the same name funded by NWO, scientists from the universities involved (Wageningen University & Research (WUR), TU Eindhoven, TU Utrecht, TU Delft, and the University of Amsterdam) work together with light specialists, growers, horticultural technology companies, architects, and food suppliers, among others. The goal? To make vertical agriculture cheaper and more energy efficient.
On the 3rd of December, Innovation Origins organizes the Agrifood Innovation Event. We composed two parallel programs – Beyond 3D Food Printing and Vertical Farms. The event takes place at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. Read more about it here.
A new vision of food production
In his opening speech, program leader and WUR professor Leo Marcelis set the tone for the rest of the day: “If we want to continue to survive on this planet, we need a new vision of food production.” He emphasized that traditional agriculture faces increasing challenges: land, water, and good soil quality are becoming increasingly scarce.
The professor said that vertical farms as a growing system are not the solution but a crucial part of the puzzle. “It allows growers to control the production process from A to Z. It requires less land, water, fertilizers, and pesticides than traditional farming. Moreover, you can establish a vertical farm wherever you want, regardless of climate or soil conditions.”
Shake up and shake out
By 2021, $2.1 billion was invested in the growing system. Meanwhile, the hype is “over,” and the industry is in the “shake up and shake out” phase, Marcelis said. “We are now looking at what is possible beyond the hype. This underscores the need for a realistic approach.”
Many companies have gone out of business, killed by rising energy prices after the war in Ukraine. This is not surprising: artificial lighting—and thus high energy consumption—plays a leading role in the cultivation system.
Thus, the industry needs to work on energy efficiency. This can be done, for example, by looking at flexible energy use, i.e., peak usage when the grid is quiet, and integrating renewable energy sources. The program leader said there have been significant improvements in lamp efficiency in recent years, but there is still much room for further optimization.
One exciting aspect is crop flexibility: some crops can tolerate less light on days when energy is more expensive and receive more light at cheaper times. These kinds of adjustments in the cropping system can yield significant energy savings.
Dare to share
Also, there are relatively high production costs, relatively low product margins, and high labor costs. And, at least as necessary, the sector could progress faster with more openness and cooperation. “I regularly have to sign non-disclosure agreements during company visits,” Marcelis says. “The sector would progress much faster if we shared more with each other.”
Despite the challenges, there are significant success stories in vertical farming. Companies such as 80 Acres Farms and Growy have shown that a vertical farm can be feasible and scalable. Their success is hallmarked by high yields, product quality, and minimal environmental impact.
Greenhouses vs. vertical farms
Marcelis argued that there is much to learn from traditional greenhouses. Vertical farms and greenhouses face similar energy and cost challenges, but the knowledge and experience gained in greenhouse farming can help improve VA systems. The sector can make faster progress by exploiting synergies between the two systems.
WUR advocates comparing vertical farming with other forms of food production to get a realistic picture. During the “Greenhouses vs. Vertical Farms” panel, representatives from four Sky High project partners discussed the differences and similarities between the Controlled Environment Agriculture cultivation systems.
A significant theme in the discussion was the location of vertical farms. Jacob Boxhoorn (Bosman Van Zaal, an agribusiness installation company) noted that the choice to build a vertical farm or greenhouse depends heavily on local conditions, such as the price and availability of land. A multistory vertical farm is a logical choice in areas where agricultural land is scarce or expensive, such as the Netherlands. In countries where land is abundant and cheap, such as India, a greenhouse may be a more cost-effective solution. “Vertical farming is not the most obvious solution everywhere: local conditions determine the choice of cultivation system.”
The best of both worlds
The use of lighting and substrates in both growing systems was also discussed. Federico Puksic (Grodan) stated that the knowledge gained in greenhouse farming also applies to vertical farming, especially regarding substrates such as rock wool, which gives excellent growing results in both systems.
Ellis Janssen-van Boxtel works at Signify Philips Horticulture LED Solutions. From the lighting perspective, there is a big difference between a high-tech greenhouse and a vertical farm. “Greenhouses have the luxury of sunlight. Vertical farms can control how much light you send into the facility. If you look at market development, you can adjust the light level on a vertical farm within a second. So there, we focus on dynamic lighting. In greenhouses, we look at autonomous growing, meaning the lighting responds to the system. We’re trying to bring the best of those two worlds together.”
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