Hydroponics Could Feed the World

When you hear the word hydroponics, what immediately comes to mind? Most likely you imagine a college kid's closet filled with lamps and marijuana plants. That is what I picture too. However, while working at an organic food store, I started seeing tomatoes labelled as being hydroponically grown. This got me wondering about the growing method - first used as far back as the 1930's - and how it could be beneficial to our society. 


Essentially hydroponics means "the process of growing plants in sand, gravel, or liquid, with added nutrients but without soil". This means that seedlings are placed in some medium (cloth, gravel, etc.) and grown indoors under LED lamps. The plants are fed fertilizers and nutrients along with water through a pumping system that recycles the water to prevent waste. 


This is a very sterile and controlled method of growing plants, and is self-contained, therefore requiring minimal effort on the farmer's part to keep the plants alive and healthy. In addition, these plants can be placed much closer together than in the field, resulting in a greater yield. There are also no pesticides, no weeds, and no pesky insects since the LED lights can be set to a frequency that discourages insect breeding. 


Here are the benefits to hydroponic farming:

• No soil
• Little assistance needed from farmers after everything is set up
• Can be done inside abandoned buildings
• Saves on water by recycling it
• No pesticides
• Organic
• Can be run using alternative energy sources, such as wind or solar power
• Large, uniform crop yields
• Great variety of fruits and veggies can be grown
• Not affected by seasons
• Relatively inexpensive
• Uses CO2 to promote photosynthesis (less CO2 and more oxygen in our atmosphere)
• Safe from bacteria such as E Coli and Listeria --> Remember when spinach was recalled due to contamination? It was due to the fact that sewage leaked into the soil in the farm fields...no soil, no issue! 

Several companies world wide are experimenting with this method of farming, including one in Ithaca New York called AeroFarms. This start-up seeks to transform abandoned buildings into "vertical farms". 

So, a building like this

could easily be turned into something like this

Helping to feed our growing populations while simultaneously eliminating factory farming, a practice which is killing our environment as well as human beings. 




Sources:
http://innoplex.org/eng/2010/12/aerofarms/ 
http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/
http://www.epicurious.com/tools/fooddictionary/entry/?id=3006