The way we currently grow most of our food is simply not sustainable!
Our current global, food system, often referred to as industrial agriculture:
* often consists of large-scale monocrops; the lack of crop diversity degrades the soil and leads to these crops becoming susceptible to pests;
* this then results in the need to use pesticides to control the pests; which build up resistance to the pesticides resulting in the need to use more or stronger pesticides;
* as the soil degrades, farmers are forced to use increasing amounts of fertilizers, often from fossil fuels, to maintain yields;
* many of these fertilizers contain nitrogen which gets washed into rivers and streams during heavy rains, polluting these water sources;
* agriculture is the second-largest contributor, after energy, to global greenhouse gas emissions; over 18%, increasing to nearly 25% when we factor in processing, packaging, transportation and retail (https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector) ;
* industrial agriculture also uses a lot of water, which is becoming a major issue as droughts become more frequent or prolonged;
* requires agricultural land, which is expensive and may be far removed from the consumers it serves (think California produce on our local grocery shelves);
* transporting food long distances generates emissions, requires use of preservatives, and greatly reduces the nutritional quality of what we eat;
* is a very capital-intensive system because of the large scale and heavy machinery;
* farmers are often left with as little as 3 cents from every dollar of revenue; with most of the money going to large, global, agri-businesses and the financial institutions that fund the farmers’ operations.
There is a better way!
With Vertical Farming, food can be grown indoors, almost anywhere, close to where people live.
The growth in work-from-home is reducing the need for commercial space; and many of these spaces could easily be converted to growing food for the local population.
This would result in more fresh, nutritious, locally grown food, greater food security, lower emissions, fewer environmental impacts, better pay for farmers, and stronger, local economies.
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