Indoor, vertical farming makes so much sense, we’ve been wondering for years who is going to be harnessing this technology for the masses. Plenty is a startup with just such a goal, and its progress toward sustainable indoor farming is laudable.
In Richmond, Virgina, the company is growing strawberries using a 30-foot (9 meter) vertical tower, taking up just 40,000 square feet to grow over four million pounds (1.8M kg) of fruit. That is vastly less land or resource use than traditional strawberry farming, and shows the promise of vertical farming.
Using AI, Plenty can control the lighting, temperature, and humidity to just the right levels for optimal growing. In doing so, they can reduce the amount of water and light they need.
Driscoll’s is one of the major companies planning to use this indoor technology for their berry growing operations.
As climate change continues to wreak havoc with out natural systems, we imagine indoor vertical farming to become a much bigger part of our agriculture.
“Plenty says that its vertical farm uses 97 percent less land and up to 90 percent less water than conventional farming. So far, the first batch of its vertical farm-grown strawberries, with the help of AI, is set to be available in early 2025.”
