Out of Lettuce? No worries, Just run to the office for the head. Seriously, in a growing number of downtowns, you can just do that. As people opt to work from home, leaving office space vacant, some empty buildings are being converted into indoor vertical farms. In this new style of farming, instead of planting acres of farmland horizontally, crops are stacked and grown on top of each other.
Most of the farms use hydroponics, a soil free technique that mists plants from their roots. A sensor-equipped AI-enabled system dims or brightens energy-efficient LED grow lights as needed, letting growers know when to add more nutrients to their crops.
The benefits are many: the plants don’t suffer from some of the problems of nature can cause such as drought or floods, nor do they need pesticides because there are no pests. Best of all, these new farm lifestyles can give new life to empty office buildings and vacant downtown.
A number of companies have always entered in the field including Area 2 farms in Washington DC and Bowery Farm in Kearny, New Jersey. And as more opens up, so do more growth opportunities. For Example in Chicago Farm Zero is leasing over 3 million office space with plans to produce 60 million pounds of vegetables annually. Thats a whole lot of lettuce.