Nordic Harvest built Europe’s biggest indoor vertical farming facility last autumn, and now the company is revolutionizing the food industry with their vertical farming.
In their facilities, the products don't need soil or sunshine to grow. Instead, racks of lettuce, kale, and herbs grow under the purple glow from thousands of LED lights. The operation relies on technology, and they use hydroponics – the method to grow plants without soil. Instead of soil, the plants feed off mineral nutrient salts dissolved in water.
Instead of sunshine, the plants grow under 28 000 renewable LED lights. The whole facility runs on wind energy, and strict controls allow it to be pesticide-free. One of the vertical farms located in France grows 8 million plants a year.
In Europe, vertical farming is a fast-growing industry and even though it’s more costly than a regular way of farming, the demand amongst environmentally-conscious consumers is very high.
Could vertical farming, despite the end-products being a bit expensive, be a sustainable complement to traditional agriculture, thereby offering locally grown greens in urban areas? Such endeavors hold the possibility of making the future come sooner.
Picture: Nordic Harvest
