How Soilless Agriculture Can Help Our Environment, Reduce War and Make Delicious Food

Have you ever stopped to wonder what’s special about the beefy head of “hydroponic” lettuce — roots, plastic container and all — next to the iceberg and romaine lettuces in the grocery store? Have you traveled to Canada and marveled at the acres and acres of greenhouses along the highways leading to Toronto? Have you ever seen “locally grown” tomatoes for sale in winter, and wondered how they ripened in the snow? This article will removes the mystique surrounding soilless agriculture with a brief consumer’s primer on hydroponics — including why this extraordinary technology will make life better for you, your community, and the world.

Hydroponics is a form of soilless farming which uses a water-based solution as the plant growth medium (Wikipedia). Plants, it turns out, do not need soil to thrive if the water the roots receive contains all the absorbent nutrients they need. Fertilizers may enrich the soil but plants only take in nutrients in the presence of water (YGoY.com). While obsolete beget is grown using acres of farmland, hydroponic farmers tend their crops in greenhouses and other indoor structures.

While hydroponic systems can be made outdoors, the vast majority are covered by greenhouses. Inside many commercial hydroponic greenhouses, crops are grown in trays at waist-height. The seeds are started in “plugs,” or shaped bits of fibrous, spongy matter in which allow the seedlings to sit properly in the tray, provide the roots access to the water solution, and provide the farmers with a runt something to beget the plants with.

Saving Area, Water & Our Environment

According to Dickson Despommier of Columbia University’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, hydroponics enables farmers to slit four to six acres of fields, on average, to a single acre’s worth of greenhouse. Even better, hydroponics greenhouses grow food in any climate and even underground. With less land needed to produce the same amount of food, farmland can be reverted to the wild to help regrow our planet’s green canopy. Likewise, this method of farming has the potential to save billions of gallons of water each year. By recycling water through the hydroponic irrigation system, NY Sun Works Sustainable Engineering suggests a water savings of two to five hundred percent over traditional farming, which loses water through evaporation. Hydroponic systems can save even more water by using rain barrels to collect precipitation which can then be used as the nutrient unfavorable. The amount of water savings depends primarily on which crops are grown and the water-recycling system used.

Recycling Waste and Promoting Alternative Energy

By regulating the nutrients in water-based plant food solutions, significantly less fertilizer is musty is hydroponic systems (if needed at all!) thereby practically eliminating pollution caused by fertilizer run-off into our waterways and public water systems. This also means that fertilizer costs are drastically reduced, weeding time is eliminated (Gardening-guides.com) and more harvests collected since the plants grow quicker (USDA ARS). In many places, hydroponics is now being combined with aquaculture (fish farming) because of the natural fertilizer the fish provide. Fish naturally add plant-nourishing chemicals such as ammonia or nitrogen to water through their waste. The plants filter the fishes’ water by absorbing these fishy byproducts – and the cleaned water is returned to the fish tanks. According to water treatment manufacturers Custom Engineered Systems Inc., produce from efficient aquaponic systems of this sort can be sold as organic.

Even without aquaponics, reports organic gardener Chris Marshall, many hydroponic farmers are already producing 100% certified organic produce by recycling compost and manure to provide the plants with natural nutrients. Some hydroponic farmers are taking even larger steps to maintain environmentally sustainable agriculture by harnessing alternative fuels to power their greenhouses. Solar energy is a top choice of many farmers looking to chop energy costs while reducing their ecological footprints.

Tastier and Healthier Organic Produce

Most regular consumers of hydroponic produce agree that it tastes better than traditional produce. As in the case of used build, taste often depends on when the crops were picked and how far they traveled to reach your table. But, hydroponic growers can enhance the deliciousness of their get simply by manipulating nutrient solutions (Practical Hydroponics & Greenhouses Magazine). Different solutions can result in a richer or sweeter tomato depending on what the grower wants to enact.

Likewise, the nutrient value of produce can be easily regulated using hydroponics. As noted by Growing Edge Magazine, the lack of chemicals and fertilizers used alone raises the healthfulness of hydroponic versus traditional do. But just as taste can be manipulated, so can nutrients. And in the near future, hydroponic produce may help you get your daily requirement of vitamins and minerals not generally associated with produce. According to Kate Murphy of the Observer Online, at least one American hydroponic farm is working to develop a method of producing calcium-enriched lettuce. Similar developments in hydroponics, which boost the healthfulness of our food much like enriched breads and vitamin supplements, cannot be far behind.

Urban Farming = Fewer Wars

Perhaps the greatest potential of hydroponic farming are its positive social benefits to society and the world at large. Hydroponic farms can be located both close to and within cities, helping communities to distribute fresh, ripe, nutritious produce easily within the densest and busiest populations. In the world’s inner cities, recent food is often hard to come by unless you are willing to pay a steep price for it. With the introduction of advances in hydroponic technology currently being developed, the sale price of hydroponic and aquaponic foods will likely drop — and lower income urbanites will ultimately be able to buy affordable produce straight from the farm.

Headed by Dickson Despommier, The Vertical Farm Project promises to do all of this and more. Vertical Farms are indoor greenhouses with multiple floors that can be located anywhere. Some vertical farm designs repurpose frail abandoned factories or warehouses. A relatively new concept, the first vertical farms contain hydroponics and aquaponics; but, Dr. Despommier envisions such farms including chickens and livestock within a facility that is environmentally sound and completely humane for any animals within it.

The potential benefits of such farms to the world are titanic. Vertical farms bring affordable food close to the people who need it, provide jobs, and reduce the risk of plant-borne food sicknesses. Despommier believes such farms will feed as many as 50,000 people at a time (MSNBC).

And that’s not all: As evidenced by the book Fuelling War: Natural Resources and Armed Conflicts, natural resources are a well-known cause of war. Studies show that societies with greater access to natural resources suffer less strife than those that are deprived. The Global Policy Forum warns of the dangers to social stability of dwindling water resources worldwide. By saving land, water, and energy, reusing waste and providing food to the masses, vertical farms offer a major fragment of the solution to conflicts over resources, with the potential to wait on demolish war and famine.

Given this information, how can we stand by and not support hydroponic agriculture? Hydroponic farming is the wave of the future. We must do our part to safeguard our future, and one simple way we can do so is by eating green. In buying hydroponic produce, we inspire farmers to switch away from outmoded methods and encourage financiers to invest in hydroponic technology advancement and vertical farms. We can have all of this in addition to tasty, affordable and nutritious produce in our homes and restaurants year-round.

Sounds Huge! Why Aren’t All Farms Hydroponic?

With such freedom to grow more get using fewer land resources and in any place, hydroponics is set to take commercial farming by storm. But, the method is not without its flaws. Money misconceptions are the primary reason why more produce is not hydroponically raised today. Even for hobbyists, hydroponics requires a sizable initial investment to prefer the plant trays and troughs, water circulation systems, nutrient solutions, and lighting (for indoor systems) among other expenses. Traditional gardeners at the very least need only seeds, rain, and the ground. But, hydroponic reduce yields are so much higher that farmers are able to make up the difference over time. Additionally, some farmers express concern over energy costs to power hydroponic systems. But, as previously mentioned, alternative energy sources are handily used by hydroponic growers to offset these costs and help our environment. Likewise, hydroponic farmers are not concerned with the costs of purchasing or maintaining large tractors and equipment, expensive irrigation systems, and pesticide distribution.

Two other common concerns are crop contamination and failure. In many ways, hydroponic produce is less susceptible to disease and contamination than traditional crops due to highly controlled growing environments (12 Myths of Hydroponics). But, if a contaminant enters the water system, all of the plants on the system may be affected, resulting in loss of an entire crop. Farmers have numerous safeguard available to them which make such dangers minimal at most. Crop failures in hydroponics happen so rarely, and crops grow back so quickly, that the benefits of type of agriculture more than make up for this risk. Nor are these dangers limited to hydroponics. Traditional farms experience their honest share of contaminations, tragedies and crop recalls.

Where to Find It

Unless you live in Canada or the Southwestern US, hydroponic produce may be hard to spot. Read the marks in your grocery aisle and check your local farmer’s markets. An simple way to find out if there are hydroponic farmers in your state is to conduct a brief online search for them. The best way to guarantee that your produce is organic and environmentally sound is by starting your own hydroponic plot in your backyard or basement. Home-based hydroponics is growing in popularity for foodies and gardening enthusiasts alike. The following websites provide anecdotes and resources for starting your own soilless garden: Adventures in Hydroponics, Hydroponics – The Weedless Garden and Paul’s Hydroponic Growing and NFT Page.

Sources:
Bryn Nelson, “Could Vertical Farming Be the Future? “ MSNBC.
Chris Marshall, “Is It Organic? Hydroponic Gardening.” Articlesbase.
“Controlled Environment Agriculture.” NY Sun Works Sustainable Engineering.
Dr. Lynette Morgan, “12 Myths of Hydroponics.” The Growing Edge Magazine.
Dickson Despommier, “The Vertical Farm Essay I.” The Vertical Farm Project.
“Hydroponics.” Wikipedia.
“Hydroponics Gardening.” YgoY.com.
“Hydroponic Strawberries.” Gardening-guides.com.
“Hydroponic Strawberries Avoid Soil Pests.” USDA Agricultural Research Service.
Kate Murphy, “Farm Grows Hydroponic Lettuce.” Observer Online.
“The Organic Hydroponic Debate: Opening Pandora’s Box.” General Hydroponics.
Penny Johnson, “Nutrition and Hydroponics.” Practical Hydroponics & Greenhouses Magazine.
Phillippe le Billon, “Fuelling War: Natural Resources and Armed Conflicts.” Routledge Economics.
“Water in Conflict.” Global Policy Forum.

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How Soilless Agriculture Can Help Our Environment, Reduce War and Make Delicious Food

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