Next-Gen Farming Isn't What You Think It Is

by the year 2050 it's estimated that global food production will need to increase by around 70 percent in developed countries to keep up with current consumption trends although only 29 of the earth's surface consists of land where only 71 of which can be used for agriculture but the most worrying part is that we already use 50 of that land for agriculture so to increase food production using traditional farming methods we would have to destroy our forests and convert them into farmland but the thing is we need those forests along with many other measures to be able to suck up carbon from the atmosphere and stop global warming but the problem is we still need to feed the earth's ever-increasing population of humans so how are we going to do that without deforestation and more farmland well i might have found a solution to this but to explain it we need to go vertical also only a small percentage of people who watch my videos are actually subscribed so if you end up liking this video consider subscribing it's free and we can always change your mind vertical farms have been growing in popularity in recent times as more and more companies have popped up out of nowhere and got an insane amount of funding to make these vertical farms one example of this could be aerofarms that has received almost a quarter of a billion dollars in funding so far so what is all the hype about are these farms the future well vertical farming is a really promising concept as it can provide you with microgreens like baby spinach basil and many others up to around 15 times annually as it can be grown all year round inside these temperature controlled vertical farms that use leds instead of sunlight other upsides include no water waste no harmful chemicals pesticides and no dirt is required as everything is carefully monitored and under control but possibly the biggest advantage for a vertical farm is in its name as it enables you to grow crops horizontally as well as vertically which is obviously not the case in traditional farming methods although as with anything in life there are downsides to this as well and these downsides are actually pretty significant first is the cost to build one of these farms which is obviously significantly higher than just buying a field and turning it into a lettuce farm the exact costs are unknown and varied drastically from farm to farm but cambridge hok made an estimate for a level 3 vertical farm which is fully autonomous to be between 2 000 and 2 700 per square meter which is obviously a lot more than just buying a patch of land and start farming but you'll have to remember that you can produce around 100 times as much in a vertical farm as you can on a traditional farm so you'll need 100 times more farmland to produce the same amount of crops but still the vertical farm would never become anywhere near as profitable as a traditional farm if it's shared the same expenses but as you might have guessed by now cars to operate a vertical farm are much lower than a traditional one imagine having a farm where you can harvest it 15 times a year and where none of those harvests can fail where you don't have to spend any money on fertilizers or pesticides where you don't have any wasted water and where the home farm can be automated and scaled infinitely that is what a vertical farm offers and over the long run a vertical farm could actually make more sense financially than a traditional farm although vertical farms do make more sense in some specific markets a good example of this is saudi arabia where historically virtually all parties had to be imported from countries far away as the saudi arabian climate didn't allow them to farm anything cost effectively if they used traditional farming methods but their major disadvantage in traditional farming becomes their significant advantage in vertical farming as they can harvest electricity from the sun using solar panels to power these vertical farms which completely eliminates their electricity bill that is usually the main cost to operate one of these farms this is the reason why saudi arabia has invested heavily in vertical farms and why emirates airlines gets plenty of its greens from vertical farms in saudi arabia but vertical farms make sense in many other countries and regions as well basically any country or region where traditional farming methods aren't viable it's a great solution the only problem with vertical farms is that you can't really grow cereals or any type of grain as it will be massively inefficient to do so with those crops it will always be cheaper to just import them from another country rather than building a vertical farm to grow them domestically and that's a problem because most of the land we use for agricultural purposes are used to farm cereals coarse grain and oil crops which means that vertical farms at least in its current state won't really make a difference in the land used for agricultural purposes worldwide so we won't be getting rid of this farmland anytime soon and therefore we can't replant our forests on the scale we need to to combat climate change so why is it that the next generation of farming is vertical if it won't help us fight climate change and can't produce all the necessary crops well this is where it starts to get really interesting you see there's something called three-dimensional underwater farming that could replace forests as well as a big chunk of our agricultural land which sounds great so what is three-dimensional underwater farming well it's a way to farm wheat but it's not the weed you are familiar with that we grow on land no it's seaweed and seaweed farming is actually pretty remarkable in the sense that it can be used for many different things including food for application biofuel for long-haul planes and container ships as well as fertilizer but possibly the most exciting thing about seaweed is that the overall effect of seaweeds on the global ecosystem is already enormous it is estimated that all algae are jointly responsible for producing 90 of the oxygen in the atmosphere and up to 80 percent of the organic matter on earth we can compare their output with plants on land by looking at the amount of organic carbon generated per square meter on an annual basis macro algae can produce between 2 and 14 kilograms whereas traditional plants such as trees and microalgae can generate only about 1 kilogram this means that the best thing we can possibly do to our planet and climate change is growing more seaweed but that's only part of it as we also need to use that seaweed for something because we can't just produce a bunch of seaweed and leave it in the oceans so as i previously mentioned we will have to use it for a bunch of different things if we are to produce it at a scale that will have a significant impact on our planet so let's discuss the many ways we can use seaweed and i promise you you will be surprised at how many things this stuff can be used for other than just your sushi roll alright so the best way to use seaweed from an environmental perspective is to eat it and luckily seaweed has a bunch of health benefits you see seaweeds are made up of a special combination of substances which are very different from the ones typically found in land-based plants which allows them to play a distinctive role in human nutrition most notably the mineral content of seaweed is 10 times greater than what is found in plants grown in soil what is even more interesting is that the composition of dried seaweed is 45 to 75 percent carbohydrates 7 to 35 proteins less than 5 fats and as previously mentioned a large number of different minerals and vitamins so it's fair to say that seaweed could very easily become a large part of our diet considering all the health benefits it provides but what about all this biofuel stuff well if you didn't know we need a sustainable solution for our fossil fuel different vehicles and while we do have batteries that work brilliantly and cars they don't make much sense in something like a long haul aircraft or container ship at least as of right now so we've been trying to figure out what technology or sustainable fuel source that could complement battery electric vehicles but biofuels have never really been an option as most biofuels produced today is made from corn which is a major bottleneck considering the more biofuel you need the more corn you have to farm and at some point we won't have enough land left for both fuel and food production although sure you could chop down forests and gain some extra farmland from that but i don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that that is a bad idea so for these reasons biofuels have never really been a viable option until now you see seaweed can actually be turned into a biofuel as well and even though we are still in the early stages of development the potential could be huge researchers in denmark were the first to test a seaweed-based biofuel and they found no difference in performance in a regular vehicle that was driving with a seaweed-based biofuel blend compared to normal fuel now sure they only had 10 of the tank filled with this seaweed-based biofuel but you'll have to remember that this technology is in its infancy and is rapidly improving so it's not really a question if it will happen but more so when it will happen so one day we should see the first vehicles run on seaweed-based biofuel although food and fuel is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we can use seaweed for other implications include medicine cosmetics fertilizers and so on so it seems we won't have a problem when it comes to utilizing seaweed but what about farming seaweed well the best thing about seaweed is that it can be farmed by anyone anywhere for a low cost you see you only need twenty thousand dollars and twenty acres of water to get started as a seaweed farmer and while farming seaweed you can actually also farm mussels as well as oysters in the same area to maximize revenue what you will end up with is what i previously mentioned a three-dimensional underwater farm where seaweed is grown on lines near the surface mussels are grown vertically and oysters are grown at the bottom and you don't even need to feed anything in this farm as the seaweed feeds off of the sun and the shellfish feed off of the plankton floating around in the waters it's basically a no maintenance farm that is easy to start while still being great for the environment so at this point we are basically only waiting for the world to realize the potential that lies in seaweed farming as it is obvious it has great implications in the future we are building also i created a patreon so if you want to support the channel directly go to the link in the description and sign up today thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 427,350

Keywords: Vertical Farm, Farming, Seaweed Farming, Seaweed, Underwater Farm, Vertical Farming, OBF

Id: LuHwv_UHSbs

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021