Laura Kelly and Terrin Ricehill farm in a sometimes-purple world. Inside their container farm in West Des Moines, Iowa, they grow crops of basil, Red Russian kale, a mix of lettuces, rosemary, and oregano. The business partners harvest weekly and sell the products to a supermarket chain, restaurants, and retail customers under the brand name 515 Farms.
In the special series "The Future of Food," DTN is looking at food insecurity but also some of the future trends, crops farmers plan to grow, the technology they'll use, and even new ways to grow their crops and process their animals more efficiently.
In today's story, The Progressive Farmer's seventh in the series takes a closer look at vertical farming. Thinking innovatively about food production has become imperative. On a large scale, traditional farmers and equipment manufacturers during the last decade have pioneered advancements ranging from herbicide applicators powered by artificial intelligence to autonomous tractors. And improved plant genetics have raised yield expectations. Production and efficiency have grown exponentially as a result.
On a smaller scale, technologies for growing food indoors also have exploded in recent years. Costco, for instance, advertises it buys some of its organic vegetables from a 600,000-square-foot indoor hydroponic farm in California. And, just outside many cities, large greenhouses have sprung up to produce local products that don't have to be shipped from farms 1,000 miles away.
Read the entire article at the Progressive Farmer