Are Vertical Farms the Future of Agriculture? 🌱

Have you ever wondered how in-flight meals are made or where the ingredients come from? 🤔

Welcome to the innovative world of vertical farming, with an inside look into the largest vertical farm in Dubai that supplies fresh greens to @emirates. Filmed in the heart of Dubai, we dive into these cutting-edge farming techniques that are revolutionizing agriculture in the region. This is how they utilize advanced technology to grow sustainable, pesticide-free produce, ensuring a constant supply of fresh greens to Emirates and beyond.

Is vertical farming the future of food production? 🌳

This Great Big Story is sponsored by @museumofthefuture

00:00 Intro
00:25 A warehouse full of greens 💚
00:57 Growing veggies without soil 😯
01:50 Making food for airlines ✈️
02:56 How to cook an in-flight meal 🍽️

Lead Producer - Chris Agathangelou
Director - Alistair Deacon
Executive Producer - Genevieve Ingham
Camera - Alessandro Pavone
Camera Assistant - Faisal Irshad
Editor - Louis Fitton
Graphics - Will Minns

Got a story idea for us? Shoot us an email at pitch [at] GreatBigStory [dot] com 📧

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#food #Dubai #verticalfarming #Ad

[GreatBigStory]

What's your go-to order during a flight? 👀🍴

[pricklyrick]

Using artificial light instead of the sun in the middle of a desert is the most Dubai thing ever lol

[sohaib]

As a person who lives in sharjah, yes, emirates food is fresh and good

[andrewreynolds]

Heres the fact guys, vertical farms have been falling for many reasons because of a few big things that make it costly from maintenance to paying workers to electricity. Sadly, this technology is falling out because it makes it hard to be profitable. I think these problems can be solved. In the future, I still think this tech is the future, but its problems need to be addressed. Then again, it doesn't mean it doesn't work.

[oyuyuy]

I've literally been selling equipment for this stuff but nowadays I'm not sure I believe in the technology anymore. Both equipment and electricity is too expensive and leafy greens are the only remotely cost effective crops. Good for saving water but I still think you need to utilize the sun if you want to make a business out of produce.

Then again, I could definitely see a future where land is more scarce and electricity comes very cheap - maybe it'll make more sense then.

[FerasAlsoufi]

Great video, I’m proud to be part of this great big story. Thank you to everyone who contributed making this happen.

[Shirotama]

Yet i somehow always end up with chicken and rice, American airlines take notes

[lowpolysunrise]

This is great! Cities could have farms now, given the right conditions.

[alfonta]

army of people to feed around the world every day ! astonishing!

[nanamanaaa]

in Indonesia, we have a lot of hydroponic farming, well at least in my city. quite a lot of household prefer buying hydroponic veggies. it's more crunchy

[RybatQ]

I am so intrigued. Can someone explain

We were all Clamoring for TGBS to return and people just stopped watching.

I was expecting millions of views or even hundreds of thousands per post.

Why is this happening?

[ambientfood]

Visit Global Vertical Farming Show in Dubai on 10th & 11th of September to meet them !

[XSpImmaLion]

Unless we end up in an apocalyptic dystopia with no usable land left for agriculture... the answer is probably not, outside of very specific cases such as the one in the video.
Put very simply, the economics don't work out. Not only for production, but also for space usage, and a few other factors.

Perhaps for Dubai it did, because you have a priority in freshness, produce can cost more, and you don't have other close sources for greens, so even if costs are high, vertical farms are a viable option... basically because they are likely just a scale up of what already had to be done - indoors hydroponics.

It's kinda like desalination plants... they are a very costly solution for a situation you don't have many other options for, so I'm glad that they exist, but I hope they are not "the future" for the majority of people.

But outside a specific case like that, regular farming has been so optimized already that vertical farming simply cannot compete in cost. Which is the major reason why most global initiatives in vertical farming globally have been failing. The tech is awesome, but it just costs way more than spreading seeds in a field and letting nature take care of the rest. All that internal climate control, lighting gear, maintenance of all of that, it all comes with extra costs.

Also, it's repeated multiple times in the video that you are getting produce that was harvested on the very same day... well, this is true for several types of produce coming from farms to your local markets too. Several of them you can't simply freeze, or sell it after too long.

People often talk about using vertical farming as a way to reduce costs in transportation, so you don't have to take trucks from farms to city... problem is that with real estate being as expensive as it currently is in major cities, it just makes no sense to put up an entire building in the middle of a city and use it for vertical farming. Residential or commercial will always make more sense. And even with all the incentive for profit that there is in residential and commercial, most cities are struggling with demand already. So why would you occupy space with vertical farming if you can do it in local farms on the periphery of cities?

It's interesting what you can do with all the tech though... I just kinda hope we don't have to come to that in most parts of the world. :P

[mmps]

This is so cool and very solar punk-y! Thank you GBS!

[PlutoTheSynth]

I was literally watching a GBS video when this dropped lol

[ulbiy]

Wow! This is incredible! I wonder how many years this took to perfect the method

[thelostmessenger]

I see many comments saying how the electric costs make it in efficient. But I think some have used real sunlight right? There should be a video on that too

[BlaGavin]

I clicked on this video thinking I would learn something about vertical farms… instead it was a video about in flight meals made in Dubai…..

[middlepyke]

what's impressive is that u can't grow anything in dubai cuz of the desert and yet people are trying their best to to make it possible

[jonwick]

The cost is too high for now, maybe if China decides to scale it massively in the future. This will be the way to go, for now, just stick on automation on farming