Improvements to vertical farming, artificial lighting and environmental impact in Canada

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Vertical farming is an increasingly popular, indoor, and space-saving agricultural method that involves growing food crops or other plants in vertical layers with artificial lighting. Advantages include year-round, local and nutritious food production for dense urban areas or food deserts, such as sprawling metropolitans or remote northern communities. In addition, growing plants in this controlled environment may reduce water usage and fertilizer, all while protecting against crop-damaging weather conditions and limiting the incidence of plant pests/diseases. To determine if vertical farming can be optimized for diverse Canadian climates, the overall goal of this proposal is to improve a vertical farming model that refurbishes 40-foot shipping containers as artificial lighting plant factories for leafy green production. The research outlined in this 5-year proposal will explore and ameliorate the use of energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs) that enhance plant growth and nutritional value in leafy greens, as well as spacing between plants, air movement and carbon dioxide enrichment in the plant factory to ramp up crop production of high quality and nutritious products with less fertilizer and without pesticides. New, smart agriculture tools (real-time electrochemical sensors and computational modeling) will be used. The environmental impact or carbon footprint of this commercial vertical farming model will be examined to determine how much water, direct energy, fertilizer, and infrastructure is needed for different Canadian climates (QC, Niagara and northern Alberta) and how this translates to conventional food production costs. Anticipated findings from this much needed research will provide some cost-efficient solutions to our partners and the controlled environmental agriculture sector in Canada for local food production. It will additionally facilitate further work investigating the management and development of a global business model aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting nutrient recycling, limiting water usage and reducing pesticide use.