The world's population is set to grow by two billion by 2050, meaning that we will need 70% more food, according to the UN. But current agriculture techniques can impact the environment negatively, from the release of greenhouse gases to soil contamination and deforestation. And so, in order to feed the world in years to come, our farms will have to drastically change – increasing yields, reducing carbon footprint, and improving efficiency. Many innovative companies in the industry are already addressing these issues through a range of techniques, from using robotics to growing plants without soil, farming indoors and even taking farms underground. Click or scroll through to see farming as you’ve never seen it before. 

At Paignton Zoo in Devon, a small farming project named VertiCrop gained global recognition back in 2012 for pioneering vertical farming technology. A vertical farm sees crops stacked in layers, and typically grown without soil, which allows more produce to be grown in a much smaller space. At VertiCrop produce is grown in special trays suspended from a track overhead, which rotates the crops through the water and nutrients they need to grow. The water and nutrients that run off the crops are then collected in order to be recycled. Alterrus, the company that created the technology, also had a vertical farming project in Vancouver, Canada, although it was financially unsuccessful and had to close down. 

AeroFarm is a vertical farm in New Jersey that goes one step futher. It removes the sun. The farm uses LED lights instead of sunshine and fabric instead of soil, while water and nutrients are misted onto the plants’ roots. In fact, the farm grows its crops using 95% less water than field-farmed produce, and with yields 390 times higher per square foot annually. The farm mostly focuses on leafy greens and supplies them to the local area, reducing the food miles.

Another vertical farm that has been successful in producing crops indoors is Colruyt Farm in Halle, Belgium. There are huge advantages in terms of efficiency and resource usage: the crops use 20 times less space, and require 90% less water and 50% less nutrients, than they would if grown using traditional methods. The farm’s basil is stocked at 31 Bio-Planet stores across Belgium and it hopes to start growing coriander later this year.

Not only does this farm grow all its crops indoors, it operates completely underground, paving the way for innovative use of space in urban areas. Based 108 feet (33m) below ground in Clapham, London, the farm uses hydroponic systems – cultivating plants without soil – and LED lighting to grow leafy greens, reducing water usage by 70%. Farming in this way means that crop yields are not affected by changes in the weather, while the inner-city location means many people can buy the produce nearby, reducing food miles.

Squeezed into a space the size of four parking spaces in Chicago, three tonnes of greens can be grown in a year – the equivalent to what could be produced in a football stadium. At the Back of the Yards facility run by Backyard Fresh Farms, six types of lettuce are grown under LED lighting, reducing energy and labour costs. The farm’s produce is already being used by some of the city’s top chefs and company CEO Jake Counne says he hopes to scale up the technology to use in other US cities.

While some farms are taking business underground, others are looking up to the skies. That’s the case for Porte de Versailles rooftop farm in Paris, which is not only the world’s largest rooftop farm but the biggest urban farm too, at almost 150,700 square feet (14,000 square metres). The farm opened in July after delays due to coronavirus and it produces a variety of fruit, vegetables and spices, allowing locals to rent small plots of land and running educational visits and workshops.

Sfera Agricola in Tuscany is southern Europe’s largest hydroponic farm, growing its crops in nutrient-rich water instead of soil, without using pesticides, in environmentally-friendly greenhouses. The process uses just two litres of water per kilogram of lettuce or tomato, compared to 75 litres in the fields. Its main crops are currently tomato and lettuce although it hopes to grow cabbage, spinach, courgettes and aubergines in the future as the company expands.

Described as the “greenhouse capital of the Netherlands”, Westland is the country’s agricultural hub, but it’s also home to some of the most efficient and innovative farms on the planet. Its climate-controlled greenhouses pioneer farming techniques that minimise water usage and increase yields. As a result, despite its small size, the Netherlands is the world’s biggest onion and potato exporter, and the second biggest tomato exporter.

One farm in the Netherlands has taken things a step further – by taking to the seas. Floating Farm in Rotterdam is currently home to 32 dairy cows and provides milk to Lidl stores across the country. The project, conceived and commissioned by Peter and Minke van Wingerden of waterborne architecture specialist Beladon and designed by architecture studio Goldsmith, aims to show how farming can be carried out when rising sea levels threaten existing farmland, while reducing the use of resources and the environmental impact. 

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A sweltering desert in the Middle East might not sound like the ideal location for farming Atlantic salmon. Yet Fish Farm in Dubai has upturned expectations with its 34-tank farm, which produces 600 to 800 tonnes of salmon per year by controlling temperature, salinity, oxygen and pH levels, as well as incorporating environmentally-friendly technologies such as solar power.

In this underwater farm at the Aquarium of Paris, fish and plants live together in harmony. The nitrogen-rich fish droppings act as fertiliser while artificial light mimics sunlight, creating ideal growing conditions for peppers and tomatoes.

It might not look very appetising, but this mushroom farm is supplying its produce to some of the French capital’s top restaurants. It works like this: cafes donate their used coffee grounds to the farm, which are mixed with cardboard, wood chips and mushroom culture, before being sealed in plastic and left to incubate in the dark for two weeks. Next, the lights are switched on, humidity reduced, and the bags are cut to allow the mushrooms to grow through. After that, they’re ready to be harvested. In February 2019, around 20 tonnes of coffee grounds were being collected in Paris each month, which produced two tonnes of oyster mushrooms.

China is the largest agricultural producer and consumer in the world, yet with climate change presenting a threat to the future of food, some companies have begun to think up environmentally-friendly ways to farm. Urban agriculture project Sunqiao, based in Shanghai, is combining space-saving vertical farming systems with research and education, through an urban agricultural district spanning 100 hectares (1 square km). 

In the middle of the Seychelles, built on an artificial island called Romainville, is a solar farm with 14,850 solar panels capable of producing 5 MWp of electricity. The power plant, which went live in January this year, will supply free electricity to 400 low-income households. Elsewhere in the Seychelles, construction on another solar power plant on a lagoon in the Les Mamelles district on Mahe, the largest of the islands, has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, when it is finished it will be the world’s largest floating saltwater power plant.

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Weeding is gruelling work – so what if it could be done by robots? Swiss company EcoRobotix has created an autonomous weeding robot which sprays herbicides on crops without the need of a human operator, using 90% less herbicide than traditional methods and improving yields. It navigates via GPS and is powered by solar power, detecting weeds via a small camera.

At Iron Ox’s farm in San Carlos, California, robot picking arms, hydroponic vats and self-driving porters are used to grow its vegetables. The company has begun selling its produce in one branch of Bianchini’s Market, a grocery store just 0.6 miles from where it’s grown, reducing the transportation costs and food miles of the produce. Although the tech has many environmental benefits, experts suggest it’s too expensive to be scalable just yet – when it comes to farming, humans are still cheaper than robots.

Another type of farm we’re likely to see many more of in the future is solar farms. On the Yakamura Dam in Ichihara, a floating solar power plant with the largest capacity for a plant of its type in Japan went live on 2 March. It’s more efficient than a regular solar power plant owing to the fact that it can operate at a lower temperature, and it’s estimated it will generate enough electricity to power 4,970 homes. 

The largest solar power plant in the Americas, Villanueva power plant stretches across 9.3 square miles (24 square km) and provides 828 MW of PV capacity. The project was completed in two phases, the first phase finishing in 2013 and the second being completed in 2015, at a total cost of US$920.8 million (£730m). Seen from above, its sheer vastness is awe-inspiring. 

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