Farming with Fewer Unknown Variables

Farming with Fewer Unknown Variables

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

One of the biggest challenges with the food system is how many factors are completely outside of the control of our farmers and ranchers. In the past year we’ve seen areas of drought, flooding, extreme heat, and other curveballs from mother nature. That is one reason that people like AgriPlay president Dan Houston are investing in indoor farming.

Houston… “Farming in traditional agriculture, one of the problems is you could be a seventh generation farmer with the best understanding of how to grow crops with every possible nuance, to how to make sure that you're getting the right yield and the rest of it. But you're still like 90% of what's going to happen is completely what's the climate gonna do? How much rain are you gonna get? What's the wind and the conditions? How much sun are you gonna get? Like none of that is in their control. And so to have a necessary resource like food, When there are technical solutions dependent on environmental factors that you can't control was always, I mean, from an outsider looking in kind of crazy. So the logical solution is into our farming, right? Or vertical farming. Stacking inside where you've got a controlled environment.”

Houston’s company AgriPlay is preparing to install a first-of-its kind vertical farm in the Calgary Tower in Canada.

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