EYE OPENER

SAN FRANCISCO, US

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San Francisco agricultural start-up, Plenty, hopes to tackle rising food demands at its innovative vertical farm. As it is indoors, pesticides can be limited and the crops are not damaged by weather extremes. Artificial intelligence controls planting, temperature, moisture and light, and learns how to improve crop production. Plenty claims it uses 99 per cent less land than typical farms.

LettUs Grow in Bristol, UK, also uses software in its indoor vertical farms. “Looking ahead, vertical farming will enable us to control the shape and fragrance of crops, creating opportunities to engineer and cultivate biopharmaceuticals like vaccines in plants,” says Dr Antony Dodd, a scientist at LettUs Grow.

Currently, temperature and lighting systems limit the environmental credentials of vertical farms. However, both Plenty and LettUs Grow aim to integrate renewable energy to ‘close the loop’ in their vertical farms.