Vertical farming

The human population is increasing every year. Hence large quantity of food crops needs to be grown in order to feed all the people. A much larger amount of land area than the existing one is required to cultivate the food crops. If farmers continue to grow and cultivate the food crops in a normal manner, due to lack of necessary soil and water, they will not be able to cultivate food crops for all the people in the world. This is because the amount of land area which is available for agricultural purposes is not sufficient to feed all the people of the world.  In order to avoid these problems, farmers can start practicing vertical farming. Vertical farming is a kind of farming, in which farmers can cultivate plant and food crops inside vertically inclined surfaces and tall buildings. Since in this technique, plants are not cultivated in outside land, farmers should take utmost care in controlling the climate, temperature and other requirements which are needed for the cultivation of food crops. There is no restriction on the types of crops which can be grown using this method. All types of crops can be grown using vertical farming. Vertical farming saves the large amount of land area required to grow crops as well as it helps farmers to cultivate crops with less waste. Thus, this is an environmental friendly as well as an economical solution to meet the increasing demands for food all over the world. Healthy crops can be grown using this method but the farmers should properly control and monitor the environment needed for the cultivation of crops like temperature, sunlight, carbon-di-oxide, pollination, etc. Plants which are grown outdoors can easily spread their roots to absorb minerals and nutrients from the soil. Since this is not possible while cultivating crops indoors, vertical farming uses either hydroponic greenhouse methods or aeroponic techniques to grow the food crops. The crops which are grown indoors using vertical farming consume less energy, water and land when compared to those crops which are grown outside. In hydroponics method, the plants are placed in gravel, small rocks, sand or wool, without the use of soil and the roots of the plants are dipped in a solution of water which is nothing but the minerals and nutrients which are needed for the growth of plants. The plants need carbon di oxide for their photosynthesis process. If the plants are grown outside, they can readily absorb carbon di oxide from the atmosphere and use it to prepare food. Since the plants are grown indoors, the room where the plants are cultivated should be provided with a sufficient amount of carbon di oxide so that the plants can easily absorb them to prepare food. The plants are also exposed to the daylight, by using small windows and doors, to help the plants carry out their process of photosynthesis. Obviously, all the nutrients which are placed in the solution are not used by the plants. Those minerals and nutrients which are not used by the plants can be recycled and can used again for the growth of other plants. Using vertical farming helps the farmers to reduce soil erosion as well as the waste produced when the same plants are cultivated outside. By practicing vertical farming, the use of pesticides, herbicides can be reduced since the plants are grown inside tall buildings and hence destruction of crops by insects and pests is quite impossible. Since the plants are grown indoors, the farmers need not worry about natural disasters like floods, rain, etc., destroying their crops. Vertical farming produces nearly 20 times the crops that are produced by outdoor farming. If the plants are grown are outdoors, insects can easily help in pollination. If the plants are grown indoors, then pollination has to be done manually by the farmers or they have to allow insects inside the rooms where the plants are cultivated so that they can help in pollination. This is one of the disadvantages of vertical farming. Obviously, vertical farming is costly. But in order to meet the demands of the food of the world, farmers should soon adapt themselves to cultivate crops using vertical farming also so that the world does not face any food crisis.  Vertical farming is not introduced in a full fledged manner in cities and urban areas. However, the future depends only on vertical farming.