How IGES Canada Ltd Vertical Hydroponic Aquaponic Towers make low cost Organic foods

“The savings from a reduction in transportation costs will enable the price of our food to be less than organic food prices”

President and Executive Director of IGES Canada Ltd Michel Alarcon, in an interview with iO9

In the future our foods may soon be grown in Agricultural Towers.

This concept, which is called CEA (Controlled Environmental Agriculture), is being pioneered by Canadian company IGES Canada Ltd as reported in the article “How Vertical Farming is Revolutionizing the Way We Grow Food”, published 9/14/15 by George Dvorsky, io9.

The idea is very simple!

Instead of food being grown in greenhouses on the ground or on traditional farms that stretch over huge acreages, the idea is to stack several climate-controlled greenhouses on top of each other in much the same way high rise skyscrapers are constructed.

The result is vertical Agricultural Greenhouse that are 100 times more efficient as they have a smaller land usage as they are basically multiple hydroponics or aquaponics greenhouses stacked vertically. Because the food is grown using Hydroponics and water is recycled using Rainwater harvesting, these Agricultural towers use 70-90% less reliant on water.

IGES Canada Ltd and their Vertical Agricultural Towers - How vertical Agricultural towers can replace Trees

They also have a smaller CO₂ footprint as there is no need to use tractors to farm the produce or pesticides due to the fact that the farms are effectively enclosed in these Agricultural towers.

There is also no need for air conditioning, as natural air channeled through the building is sufficient, albeit being climate controlled dos help reduce the hence of disease spreading to the plants from outside.

Growing occurs both at night and as well as in the daytime, as LED Lighting that mimics sunlight can be used to stimulate plant growth during the night time. Power for these lights being supplied by a photovoltaic system and Wind Turbines mounted on the top of the tower.

Algae such as the Dulce Seaweed algae that taste like Bacon as discovered by Oregon State University as reported in my blog article entitled “Oregon State University discover Dulce Seaweed Algae taste like Bacon - How Dulce can solve UNFAO's Meat Crisis in 2025 and also make Beer” can also be grown in bioreactors fueled by filtered sunlight as well as special LED that shine continuously thought the night.

Thus this replacement for meat can be made to grow rapidly with as minimum of water in sealed tubes or growing chambers as shown in the photographs above.

Because the farm is enclosed in a climate-controlled environment, they can boost the CO₂ level from 340 ppm by volume to about 1,000 ppm, which results in a proportional increase in photosynthesis among plants and consequently more sugars and carbohydrates being produced for plant growth.

This means that these Agricultural towers can also function as gigantic concrete trees, process the Earth's excess CO₂ into breathable Oxygen and thus reducing this Greenhouse Gas and maintaining the O₂ balance in the atmosphere.

Robotics in Farming - How Vertical Towers can make low cost Organic foods a reality

In fact, because of the orderly arrangement of the fruits and vegetables being grown inside of the greenhouses, they can actually use robots similar to those used in Australia to inspect and pick the fruit as reported in the article “Robots being used for Agricultural work in Australia”, published Aug 18, 2015 By IANS, BGR.

As these are vertical hydroponic farms, there is no need for soil; a nutrient solution is used to grow the products with water being recycles into aquaponic farms that are used to extract ammonia from the fish waste to produce ammonia and nutrient rich water that is used to continuously grow the plants.

 

Already IGES Canada Ltd has plans to roll out these vertical farms in the northern regions of Canada in order to feed the aboriginal population with broad leaf products like micro-greens, herbs, and soft fruit.

 

IGES Canada Ltd estimates that they can produce some 912 metric tons per year in a 10,000 square meter space, enableing the Canadians in the northern part of Canada to avoid having to import food to supply them during the winter months.

Organic Food at Regular Prices – How the Desert can feed us and clear Greenhouse Gases

But it’s the other potential that Vertical farming makes possible; organic food at lower prices than to the high level efficient in terms of land, water resources and fertilizer and pesticide.

These vertical Agricultural Towers can be set up anywhere, even in the dry arid deserts and be used to supply foot to places that would normally have to import their own food.

In the process, we can not only fix the atmosphere but also feed the world’ population expected to balloon to some 9 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 21000 according to statistics from the United Nations Population Division as reported in my blog article entitled “United Nations Population Division says 11.2 billion people by 2100 - Why Africa and India Population exploding as Insect Meat is coming”.

This is very similar to the Agricultural towers that are so often mentioned in the SyFy Show Dominion in the city of Vega.

However, unlike in the movie, we don't need angelic forces to compel us to grow crops in this manner, just the motivations to realize that growing foods in vertical towers on smaller tracts of land is far more efficient than growing them on sprawling acreages of land.