100 Acres Equivalent on 7000 Square Feet for Vertical Farms?
This article claims so:
100 acres (40.4686 ha) on 7000 sf (650,3213 m²) is a serious claim - but here's the math of what it would take
100 acres is 4.4M sf. That is about 600x more area than 7000 sf.
Improvements of a vertical hydroponic system compared to a farm:
- 2x for artificial lighting
- 4x for typical seasons (6 month growing season in temperate climate)
- 5x for hydroponic vs. soil growing
So above we already have 40x the yield increase. Another 15x gets us the claimed 600 fold increase: simply by using 7 - 8 levels of rotary growers! Each has 2 surfaces. So the amazing yield increase is absolutely real.
Now the labor requirements are going to be the key - and there is no magic on that. Someone will have to grow the food. But this would make lots of sense in a Collaborative Production model - with subscription farming indoors.
Major issues to address will be pests. There is no easy way out for this with organic agriculture.
