Protecting our food source, is paramount!
Vertical farming is the future. It will ensure access to healthy food for optimum nutrition, while protecting environmental factors that will put safeguards in place so that there is no compromise to land, air, and water. This approach to farming will help alleviate food contamination, pollutants, spoilage, protect natural resources and reduce the ability to maliciously taint the food source.
With vertical farming, a grower can product a larger variety of harvestable crops due to the use of isolated crop sectors. In traditional farming, one type of crop is harvested per season, whereas vertical farms allow for a multitude of crops to be grown and harvested at once. Current applications of vertical farming coupled with other state-of-the-art technologies, have resulted in over 10 times the crop yield than would receive through traditional farming methods.
Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) is a technology-based approach toward food production. The objective of CEA is to provide protection and maintain optimal growing conditions throughout the development of the crop. Production takes place within an enclosed growing structure such as a greenhouse or building. Plants are often grown using hydroponic methods in order to supply the proper amounts of water and nutrients to the root zone. This approach optimizes the use of resources such as water, energy, space, capital and labor. Different techniques are available for growing food in controlled environment agriculture but the more viable option is vertical farming. It has the ability to produce crops all year round in a controlled environment, with the possibility of increased yield by adjusting the amount of carbon and nutrients the plants receive.
The United States Department of Agriculture predicts the worldwide population to exceed 9 billion by 2050, most of which will be living in urban or city areas. Vertical farming is the USDA's predicted answer to the potential food shortage as population increases. This method of farming is environmentally responsible by lowering emission and reducing needed water. Urban farming allows for nearly immediate farm to store/restaurant transport, which drastically reduces distribution costs, spoilage of produce and reduction of carbon footprint.
Benefits of Vertical Farming
- Climate change / climate control
- Reduced crop loss & spoilage
- Less touches, less disease, better controls
- More nutrient dense food
- Grown locally
- Immediate farm to store/restaurant
- Higher consumer confidence
- Premium pricing for fresh organics
- Faster trackability for recall issues
- Reduced transportation costs
- Pest control
- Vertical farming is less disruptive to the environment!
HOVE International and Logiqs have been working together with growers for more than 45 years to continuously make strides forward in the field of greenhouse automation and greenhouse internal logistics.
For the last five years we've also been involved in the creation of the iCube automated storage and retrieval system system, and that has lead to us gaining even more experience in logistical systems using semi-autonomous shuttles/carriers.
Logiqs had already designed and implemented countless multi-level rolling bench systems for greenhouses around the world, but now we’ve set out to put all our experience and logistical know-how to work towards creating the best automated vertical farming solution in the world.
What we’ve come up with is: The Greencube
The foundation of our design was the desire to actually make a sustainable vertical farming system, and this both from an environmental point of view as well as from a financial point of view.
To do this we designed the Greencube steel structure with standardized components used for pallet storage systems and iCube systems.
Next, when it came time to design the automation equipment we continued focusing on standardization.
By using the innovative 2D-Shuttles that can move throughout the entire Greencube and Shuttle Lifts for movement between layers we managed to keep the logistical design of the Greencube brilliantly simple.
