Case Studies

As urban populations continue to rise, innovators are looking beyond traditional farming as a way to feed everyone while having less impact on our land and water resources. Vertical farming is one solution that’s been implemented around the world. Vertical farms produce crops in stacked layers, often in controlled environments such as those built by AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms grows a variety of leafy salad greens using a process called “aeroponics,” which relies on air and mist. AeroFarms’ crops are grown entirely indoors using a reusable cloth medium made from recycled plastics. In the absence of sun exposure, the company uses LED lights that expose plants to only certain types of spectrum. AeroFarms claims it uses 95% less water than a traditional farm thanks to its specially designed root misting system. And it is now building out a new 70,000 square foot facility in a former steel mill. Once completed, it’s expected to grow 2 million pounds of greens per year, making it the largest indoor vertical farm in the world.

→ https://aerofarms.com/

This is Nemo’s Garden, it’s an underwater farm created by the Ocean Reef Group. The project was started as an experiment as the owner’s crops were suffering in cold weather. Nemo’s Garden utilizes the near constant temperature of the sea to make growing plants easier. The garden was first set up in 2013 just off the coast of Noli, Italy. While the original experiments were washed away in a storm, a more permanent structure was built shortly after.   Nemo’s Garden is connected to a control tower on the shore that monitors each biosphere and provides power. Ocean Reef Group also produce smaller biospheres that can be placed inside aquarium.

Farming in the desert may not seem a very practical idea, but in places like Egypt where the population is growing and agricultural land is shrinking options are limited. Meet the young entrepreneurs who found a solution to the problem.

«After spending close to a year developing a hydroponic system that would be economically feasible to build and run Egypt, Adel El Shentenawy joined as a founding partner to help start up our first leafy-green producing hydroponic farm in January 2013 along the Cairo- Alex Desert road. This system had proven its effectiveness, producing 8x more per fed than compared to traditional agriculture, all while saving up to 95% water and eliminating the need for chemical pesticides to give Egypt the freshest, cleanest leafy greens that can be produced, all while being 100% environmentally friendly, producing no pollution at all.»

→ https://hydroponics-nederland.nl/egyptian-hydrofarms/