What is a vertical farm? What are the functions of vertical farms?

1. Who put forward the concept of vertical farm? What is a vertical farm?

The concept of vertical farm was proposed by Dickson Despommier, professor of environmental health and microbiology at Columbia University. According to his article "Vertical Farm", vertical farm is a large-scale agricultural production in cities, or a farm in skyscrapers. Vertical farms use resource-based technology to treat urban organic waste and wastewater, produce vegetables, fruits, edible fungi and algae throughout the year, and use renewable energy technology to obtain energy. Professor Despermer proposed the concept of vertical farm in a medical ecology class in 1999. In 2001, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York created and carried out the project of vertical farm. Professor Despermer believes that under the existing conditions in New York, a 30 story building covering an urban block can support 10000 people - in some other words, he believes that the number can reach 50000 people. About 150 skyscraper style vertical farms can provide food for New Yorkers for nearly a year. With the support of such data, it can be considered that the production capacity of vertical farms is far more than the existing horizontal agricultural operation mode - vertical farms have a strong production capacity of agricultural products.

With the support of its strong agricultural production capacity, the vertical farm not only aims to meet the future food demand, but also hopes to liberate the existing farmland and return the farmland to the nature, so as to enhance the ability of the ecosystem to resist disasters and alleviate or solve the global ecological crisis.

In addition, vertical farms are designed to treat urban organic waste and wastewater. Professor Despermer hopes to use urban organic waste and wastewater in the form of imitating the material cycle and energy flow in the natural world, change the existing urban energy cycle system, and obtain renewable energy to serve the city. Therefore, vertical farms in general sense not only have the function of agricultural production, but also have the function of recycling urban organic waste water.

Vertical farm is not a purely architectural concept. It includes aquatic biology, material science, structural and mechanical design, industrial microbiology, plant and animal genes, architectural design, public health, waste management, physics and urban planning

Knowledge and technology. Taking organic wastewater treatment in cities as an example, it involves wastewater treatment technology in environmental science and biomass energy utilization technology in energy science. Vertical farm is a concept of interdisciplinary cooperation.

2. Vertical farm function

The production of agricultural products on vertical farms adopts artificial environment control means to control the temperature, humidity and light environment required for the growth of animals and plants. Some vertical farms use the "food chain" method in the natural ecosystem to match plants, animals and microorganisms to seek greater utilization of materials and energy. Plant growth involves facility agriculture technology, soilless cultivation technology and plant factory technology in agriculture. In the production process of agricultural products, hydroponic cultivation, aeroponic cultivation and other medium planting methods can be used. The main types of agricultural products are vegetables and fruits. In the process of animal breeding, aquaculture and chicken breeding are mainly used, and some of them involve large-scale livestock breeding of pigs, cattle and sheep.

Professor Despermer's vertical farm treats urban and agricultural organic wastes, and obtains biogas by anaerobic fermentation as energy during the operation of vertical farm. At present, the production of agricultural products in vertical farms is cultivated with nutrient solution, which can not effectively use the nutrients in biogas slurry. In actual agricultural practice, anaerobic fermentation products such as biogas slurry and biogas residue can also help crops grow and store vegetables. Biogas slurry is used as fertilizer during the growth of agricultural products, and biogas residue is used as the growth medium of some crops. Based on the three-dimensional agriculture concept introduced later, there is potential to use biogas slurry and residue for crop production. In addition, animal feces can also be used as raw materials for anaerobic fermentation. The urban organic wastewater in the vertical farm is purified from the wastewater through anaerobic processes to become reclaimed water. Reclaimed water can be used as irrigation water for vertical farms or as domestic water. The waste residue precipitated from this link enters the anaerobic fermentation link. The reclaimed water is further purified into drinking water. Further purification of reclaimed water can be achieved by evaporation of fast-growing plants or wetland purification. Water is recycled in vertical farms.

At present, vertical farms generally use renewable energy as their own huge energy consumption support. Biomass energy is the main energy source. In the field of vertical farms, biomass that generates biomass energy includes not only urban organic waste water, but also agricultural product waste in vertical farms, including straw and animal manure. After fermentation, biomass energy is converted into biogas as energy. In addition, solar photovoltaic power generation and wind farms are also common renewable energy sources in vertical farms.

label: What is vertical farm Who put forward the concept of vertical farm Mitigate or solve the global ecological crisis Strong production capacity of agricultural products