The world is facing some major problems
food security, water security
species loss
climate change
Vertical farms have been proposed as part of the solution to these global problems
But is it just another overhyped technology, with great claims but lacking in practical application?
this video and go to explore these global problems, in context of current agricultural techniques and
Investigate whether this technology can really help solve them. But first what is a vertical farm
vertical farm is essentially an indoor farm that uses soilless technology (hydroponic or aeroponic)
to grow food
Rather than being restricted to two dimensions. They stack levels on top of each other and make use of artificial lighting
The combination of highly controllable growing conditions, optimal light levels at all times
full year-round growing and harvesting
give vertical farms an incredible yearly output, for a given area of land
and it doesn't really matter where in the world you place them, in the desert, in the city
in Antarctica, even on Mars
But while you could technically place them more or less anywhere, should you? Why waste energy lighting plants artificially?
When the Sun does it naturally?
Why build towering racks, when the world is covered in fertile land? To understand why we might want to
First we must have a quick look but the tremendous success of agriculture and its impact on the world
simply put
agriculture is one of humans oldest and most important innovations
a practice over
12,000 years old yet, it continues to deliver
Using the USA as an example,
in 1790, 90% of the population were farmers.
Today that number is just 1%
Yet despite this staggering reduction in farmers, the USA can still feed its citizens.
In fact, it's the world's largest exporter of food!
This amazing feat, is due to magnitudes of improvement in efficiency.
And that efficiency is crucial, because the world as we know it, wouldn't be here without it.
Today, the global population stands at 7.6 billion.
Over 4 times higher than it was 100 years ago, yet this recent population
boom would have been impossible without an associated boom in
agricultural productivity
But scaling up agriculture is not without some serious side effects
And it's contributing to some major global issues
So let's take a look at some
The UN predicts world population to reach 9.8 billion by 2050
With an increasing demand for food in the developing world and an increased demand for meat in particular
According to the FAO, we will need a 70% increase in our global food production by 2050
If we take technological improvements into consideration, will we have enough land to meet this increase?
Global food yields increase every year on average
With the projected non confounding yearly growth rate, of 0.65% percent
Yet despite yield improvements
The demand will still lead to an expected 12% increase in cropland. An area of 2 million square kilometers
unfortunately, it's not the only increase.
A profitable market for biofuels exists and is expected to increase by 2050
The global biomaterials market is also expected to grow significantly
Taken together these will increase the cropland required by an additional 1.2 million square kilometers
Taking our 2050 cropland increase up to 21%
This is an area around the size of India
The bad news isn't over though. We are also losing our existing land
Farmable land is set to be turned into an urban environment
With the global urban footprint expanding by 33%
meanwhile, desertification turns previously farmable land sterile
Combining these effects, the loss of land relative to the current cropland,
is 18%. That's a considerable amount of land
Do we even have enough farmable land left ?
As of 2005 the world was 71% ocean and 29% land
66% of that land is considered farmable. of that,
we see that 51% is already being used for agriculture, with 40% being forests and
6% shrubland
If we factor in our 2050 model and take cropland increases and land losses into account, we get the following
We still have enough land left to feed the world of 2050
But we essentially have no spare farmable land left globally
This model doesn't even account for the anticipated yield loss
Related to climate change, nor any additional grazing land for the projected 73% increase of meat consumption
These factors, make the likelihood of cutting down significantly more global forests in 2050
almost inevitable
global deforestation last year was a hundred and 180,000 square kilometres.
An area around the size of England
Vertical farming may not be needed to ensure we can put food on the table
We do have enough capacity in hand to prevent mass starvation
But the land requirements to keep the global population sustained, points us to our next global challenge
But first, a quick note on global hunger
Even though we produce enough food today to feed all 7.6 billion people on earth
870 million people suffer chronic undernourishment due to a lack of food. That's eleven percent of the population!
I will talk more about this in my appendix video and how vertical farming may help
and I'll leave a link to that at the end of this video
However, global hunger is more than just a food production problem. As such, I will touch on it in a number of my future videos
The increasing demand for land comes at a steep environmental price
since humans first wielded axes
We've cut down over half the world's forests and it's not been without consequence
in fact, some scientists argue that the world is undergoing its sixth mass extinction event
as evidence by massive animal population reductions
According to the World Wildlife Foundation
We've lost 38% of land animals in the last 40 years
primarily from habitat destruction
It's not hard to see why
Remember this graph? this 50% has only appeared in the las t 12,000 years
with most of it happening in the last hundred years or so.
That 50% used to be forests or shrub land
However, it's not just deforestation
freshwater animal populations have seen an alarming
81% reduction
since 1970
Agriculture is the main contributor to this
primarily draining wetlands to create cropland
In fact, 50% of the world's wetlands have disappeared since 1910
water consumption for irrigation further depletes local water levels, damaging habitats
agricultural runoff such as pesticides
Finds its way into local water systems poisoning wildlife. Runoff fertilizer can cause massive algae blooms
Draining the water of oxygen and creating dead zones
Desertification is a process where fertile land turns into desert, unable to support crops
and it's happening at a significant rate?
Greater than 3 times the area of Switzerland, every single year
Agriculture is the primary reason, with over grazing
overdrafting of ground water
Deforestation and tillage practices all contributing to the problem. In China it's happening at a huge rate
with 2,000 square kilometers per year
Turning into desert and about 10 times that area becoming significantly degraded
These are creating large dust storms that are making Beijing's already bad air pollution even worse
Beijing is now less than 70 kilometers from the rapidly encroaching desert and
Projected to be encircled by it in less than 20 years
This is a big problem for China
40 years ago
China was a net exporter of food yet. Now, it's the world's biggest importer of food by far
All of the countries in the world with the exception of the United States have agreed to the Paris climate Accords
The aim is to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees
Celsius this century, against a baseline of pre-industrial levels. Preventing the temperature rise
essentially focuses on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases
This is going to be a huge challenge because much of civilization as we know it is built around
technologies that cause greenhouse gas emissions in some form
Climate change is a topic that will crop up in a number of my future videos. But for now we will focus on Agriculture's role
Agriculture is a big player in the emission game, while the conversation is usually around carbon dioxide
Agriculture's primary responsibility is related to far more potent greenhouse gases: methane and nitrous oxide
Methane is mainly produced by beef production, while nitrous oxide is produced
primarily through fertilizers
converting methane and nitrous oxide into a carbon dioxide equivalents and also taking into account that agriculture is
responsible for 75% of global Deforestation
we see that agriculture is responsible for 18.3% of global emissions
And that is excluding its transport footprint. With an increasing demand for food,
land and a diet shift towards more meat
Agriculture can be expected to contribute close to double its already large footprint
This is a great concern at a time when the Paris Accords target aggressive emission reductions
On  Planet whose surface is 71% ocean. It seems surprising to hear that we are running out of water
But we are
According to NASA the majority of the world's fresh water supplies are draining faster than they are being replenished
Agriculture is responsible for
92 percent of the global freshwater usage and since agricultural demand is set to nearly double
Fresh water demand is set to increase by 55 percent
By 2050. This represents a major problem even for developed countries with places such as Western, Australia
California the Gulf states China for developed countries
this may be manageable, because they can afford water imports and even desalination. But for North Africa the
situation is particularly critical. If more countries are forced to import water then prices increase
This can make water prohibitively expensive for many developing nations that find themselves short on water
While our civilization wouldn't be where it is today without agriculture it's a big factor in a number of humanity's greatest challenges
If we continue as we are we will likely have to cut down more of our remaining forests for land
destroying even more land and freshwater habitats in the process
We will permanently degrade more fertile land into deserts while significantly increasing our greenhouse gas emissions
Instead of reducing them. Perhaps the highest risk of all for Humanity is water scarcity
Current projections make a global water crisis almost certain
In light of these challenges, we probably want to ask if there is a way to reduce the negative impact of current agricultural methods
It's worth remembering that this data is the global picture
If all of agriculture used the best practices and technologies. Then the negatives could at least be somewhat reduced
Still, with the sheer size of the problems, we may well need a more radical change in approach
Can vertical farming really solve these problems?
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