Indoor Farming

In Japan, a 25,000 square foot facility is dedicated to an indoor farming endeavor that is 100 times more productive than its outdoor counterpart. The space is producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day (100 times more per square foot than traditional methods) with 40% less power, 80% less food waste, and 99% less water usage than outdoor fields.

The idea for the facility came from Shigeharu Shimamura after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed parts of Japan and caused food shortages throughout the island nation. The building itself was an abandoned semiconductor factory. Image Credit

Shimamura has had passion for produce production ever sense visiting the Expo '85 world's fair in Tsukuba, Japan as a teenager. He studied plant physiology at Tokyo University of Agriculture and in 2004 started an indoor farming company called Mirai, which in Japanese means "future."

The technology used in the indoor farm includes customized LED lighting developed with GE. The lights help plants grow up to two and a half times faster. Shimamura shortened the cycle of days and nights in this artificial environment, growing food faster, while optimizing temperature, lighting and humidity, and maximizing vertical square footage. No water is lost to soil and a core-less lettuce reduces waste. As of now picking is done manually but machines automate some parts of the process.

What makes the most economic sense is to produce fast-growing vegetables that can be sent to market quickly, but Shimamura thinks that they can produce any kind of plant in the factory. And due to the climate-controlled space and replicable conditions, this solution can be deployed anywhere in the world. The need for fresh produce is especially prevalent in high-cost urban areas, which will also benefit from the reduction in power usage and waste. New facilities utilizing this technology are being constructed in Hong Kong, and soon Mongolia, Russia, and mainland China.

Watch the video here.