Growing vegetables almost doesn't use soil and water

An American company is starting to build the world's largest farm of nearly 7,000 square meters, growing clean vegetables with aeroponic technology, estimated to supply more than 900 tons of vegetables per year to residents of Newark, New Jersey.

New cultivation technology of vegetables is almost no need to use soil and water

Aero Farms is an American leaf vegetable company. Currently, the company is cultivating more than 200 vegetable varieties, using aeroponic technology. Accordingly, the tree is planted on the rig system. The roots of the plants are sprayed with nutrient-rich solution, maximizing water savings.

Vegetables grown by aeroponic technology.(Photo: Independent)

David Rosenberg, managing director and founder of Aero Farms, said that the result is better, healthier vegetables than traditional outdoor vegetables.

"We use non-GM seeds. Plants grow without spraying any pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, " Rosenberg said.

Currently, the company is building a farm in three old steel mills in the city of Newark. Construction will be completed later this year, and the farm will become a vegetable growing place using the world's largest aeroponic technology.

"We are trying to radically change the agricultural approach," said Marc Oshima, Aero Farms co-founder. "That and bringing food to consumers."

The company currently operates many gas and vegetable farms in major cities in the United States.Each year, they can harvest 30 crops.

Cultivated vegetables such as kale and spinach have a growth time of 30-40 days in outdoor fields, Oshima said. However, if cultivated by aeroponic technology, use LED lighting and provide nutrition through the ground fabric, the time is reduced to 12-16 days.

According to Independent, this technology has many advantages. In the United States, most leafy vegetables are grown in Arizona or Salinas, California, where the climate is warm. However, building an urban farm, saving time for transporting vegetables to the market, while cutting down on energy used in transportation.

The company plans to grow to 25 farms over the next 5 years, and is looking for opportunities to penetrate the UK market. They say the technology saves 95% of water compared to traditional vegetable cultivation in the field, and increases spinach yield to 70 crops per year compared to the old way.

" In this way, we control every factor that affects growth, " Oshima said. " We control about 10,000 data points during tree growth."

Farm model is under construction in Newark, New Jersey.(Photo: Independent)

The farm under construction in Newark has a total area of ​​69,000 square meters, including offices, laboratories and cafes. The project is ranked by Gold Sachs, a US multinational corporation, ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the 500 largest enterprises in the world, pouring 39 million USD of investment capital.

" The vertical farm farming initiative of Aero Farms will help boost the local economy, motivate people to use clean food, and support the sustainable development environment, " said Margaret Anadu, chief executive officer. The executive of Urban Investment Group of Goldman Sachs said. "More importantly, this project also creates high quality jobs for local people."

The United Nations predicts that the world population will increase from more than 7 billion today, to 9.6 billion by 2050. The world is facing climate change, as well as losing agricultural land due to urbanization.

According to CCTV, more than 50% of the future population will live in urban areas. Therefore, the vertical farm of growing clean vegetables promises to be the main farming method in the future , using the space for cultivation, instead of the traditional land.