Life Sciences Veggie Factory Farming

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Humans have spent the last 10,000 years mastering agriculture. But a freak summer storm or bad drought can still mar many a well-planted harvest. Not anymore, says Japanese plant physiologist Shigeharu Shimamura, who has moved industrial-scale farming under the roof.

Working in Miyagi Prefecture in eastern Japan, which was badly hit by powerful earthquake and tsunamis in 2011, Shimamura turned a former Sony Corporation semiconductor factory into the world’s largest indoor farm illuminated by LEDs. The special LED fixtures were developed by GE and emit light at wavelengths optimal for plant growth.

The farm is nearly half the size of a football field (25,000 square feet). It opened on July and it is already producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day. “I knew how to grow good vegetables biologically and I wanted to integrate that knowledge with hardware to make things happen,” Shimamura says.
More (including pictures): Lettuce See the Future: Japanese Farmer Builds High-Tech Indoor Veggie Factory (GEReports.com, 9. July 2014)

Also: Video (Youtube).
 
A similar farm to open in Jackson, Wyoming:
Jackson, Wyoming, is an unlikely place for urban farming: At an altitude over a mile high, with snow that can last until May, the growing season is sometimes only a couple of months long. It's also an expensive place to plant a garden, since an average vacant lot can cost well over $1 million.

But the town is about to become home to one of the only vertical farms in the world. On a thin slice of vacant land next to a parking lot, a startup called Vertical Harvest recently broke ground on a new three-story stack of greenhouses that will be filled with crops like microgreens and tomatoes.
More: A Vacant Lot In Wyoming Will Become One Of The World's First Vertical Farms | Co.Exist | ideas + impact (February 23, 2015)
 
Scientists in the Netherlands say they are close to a breakthrough which will allow crops to be grown in deserts. Many say this could completely alter life on the African continent and even end hunger. World leaders meeting at the climate talks in Germany are being urged to commit to more funding for new agricultural projects in drought-stricken parts of the world. Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee reports from the Netherlands.
(9. Nov. 2017)
 
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