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I've worked in this field. I'll list a few points for it. 1) Pesticide free. There's a lot of chemicals that go into growing crops and they contaminate our bod
by hanniabu 8y ago
I've worked in this field. I'll list a few points for it.
1) Pesticide free. There's a lot of chemicals that go into growing crops and they contaminate our bodies, water, and soil.
2) Sun is free, but sun exposure and temperature aren't consistent year round.
3) Shipping may be cheap, but the time of travel from the farm to the table is long. Growing locally increases the amount of time a plant can be on the shelf or fridge before going bad. Food waste is a big problem from a waste and cost perspective.
4) You've touched on the water aspect. It's an issue that this can solve.
5) Going back to farming and food waste, much of the crop grown is scrapped due to insect or animal damage, rot, or other reasons.
6) Soil type and exhaustion. Only certain type of plants can be grown in certain soils and environments and only for so long before the soil is exhausted of nutrients.
7) In hydroponics you can control the taste of the product by the light spectrum and nutrients. Some customers ask for specific tastes, which is something farms can't provide.
8) Hydroponics is just the first step. The next step is integration of microbials and aquaculture with aquaponics.
- contravariant 8y ago>7) In hydroponics you can control the taste of the product by the light spectrum and nutrients. Some customers ask for specific tastes, which is something farms can't provide. I think you're selling farmers short there, I reckon quite a few of them could affect the taste of their produce, but can't because the market just buys from them in bulk with no regard for taste.
- hanniabu 8y agoYes and no. If they put the resources into it I'm sure they might be able to, but the flavor change comes from the light spectrum and nutrients so that'd be very difficult for them to control out in the open elements.
- regularfry 8y agoSo what you're saying is that small batch sizes allow varied products to be produced at low cost with a low overheads? Wonder where I've heard that before...
- ghthor 8y agoApple farms in my experience can have so many different flavours and varieties. Always stop at Apple farms and hopefully go pick some of your own. The store apples will never seem the same.
- agumonkey 8y ago> 3) Shipping may be cheap, but the time of travel from the farm to the table is long. Growing locally increases the amount of time a plant can be on the shelf or fridge before going bad. Food waste is a big problem from a waste and cost perspective. To the point that strains are picked and/or modified based on their ability to withstand long trips.
- hanniabu 8y agoYup, and are also harvested early so they ripen on the way to the store. Also since plants start to decay as soon as they're picked(even if cooled), the more time that passes until consumption the less nutritious they will be.
- slothtrop 8y ago>6) Soil type and exhaustion. Only certain type of plants can be grown in certain soils and environments and only for so long before the soil is exhausted of nutrients. Wouldn't this also be true for vertical farming?
- hanniabu 8y agoNot if done with hydroponics. The water is frequently dosed with nutrients to keep the proper levels.
- slothtrop 8y ago>dosed with nutrients Forgive me for the possible ignorance, but that sounds like just a different means of addressing the same problem of having to add nutrients to the soil. Don't we add fertilizer/till/change soil? Why is it better to dose with nutrients?
- hanniabu 8y agoIt's not the same. It's much easier to do dosing with water since they're soluable and can be evenly dispersed. The different in medium with dirt makes this much hard. There will also be build up of unused nutrients that throw off the proportions. The build up of nutrients and non-uniform distribution can make the crops vulnerable to various side effects including nutrient burn. This build up in hydroponics is mitigated by periodically flushing and replacing the water system.
- aeorgnoieang 8y agoThey're not using soils; they're providing the entire environment for the plants to grow, including any nutrients.
- aeorgnoieang 8y ago> 4) You've touched on the water aspect. It's an issue that this can solve. Market pricing for water could solve all of the problems with water too.
- sargun 8y agoWhy not aeroponics?
- hanniabu 8y agoAeroponics I would technically classify as a subset of hydroponics. It's just a variation of technique.