Gus van der Feltz - The Institute of Vertical Farming - High-Tech Farming for an Urbanizing World
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2018
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
Vertical farming is a practice that involves the cultivation of crops on multiple levels in a fully enclosed environment equipped with optimal artificial lighting and an optimal atmosphere. The results? Fresher, better, and healthier crops that are grown without the use of pesticides and are available to those who may otherwise be unable to access them--especially those who live in urban environments.
Gus van der Feltz is the head of member relations at the Institute of Vertical Farming, which works to both promote and advance the industry of vertical farming, as well as look after the interests of its members. This includes ensuring that employees receive quality training, and that operations remain compliant with rules and regulations.
The benefits of vertical farming include the ability to closely control the temperature and lighting in various growing systems, and in some cases, increase yield. For example, under the best possible circumstances, a head of lettuce can be grown outdoors in about 60 days; in a vertical farming environment, the same head of lettuce could be grown in about 35 days.
In addition, the taste profile of vertically-farmed crops has been recognized as superior to those grown outdoors in an uncontrolled environment. But at least one challenge remains: lowering the cost of these high-quality crops.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Almost Here, Around the Corner of Future Technology Podcasts with Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:07.0 | Future Technologies |
| 0:08.0 | Boys to transform our lives for better or worse are the focus of this podcast. Almost here means these |
| 0:14.8 | technologies are now here and starting to be used or just around the corner for |
| 0:19.6 | Bitcoin to artificial intelligence, 3D printing, blockchain, virtual reality, and more. |
| 0:25.0 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with Future Tech Podcast. |
| 0:29.0 | My guest is Gus Fondefeltz. |
| 0:31.0 | He's head of membership at Vertical Dash Farming, the Institute of |
| 0:35.8 | Vertical Farming. So, Gus, people may not know what vertical farming is, so let's just |
| 0:41.8 | define that quickly. What is vertical farming is so let's just define that quickly what is vertical farming |
| 0:43.7 | is the conservation of crops in a fully enclosed environment so typically |
| 0:51.5 | you need to think about some sort of a building that's closed, no daylight |
| 0:56.8 | interesting to the building and inside that building you create a structure where there is multiple |
| 1:01.2 | levels of wrecks which have LED lighting, |
| 1:05.4 | particularly, artificial lighting, a very well-controlled climate, and also a, the crops of course. |
| 1:15.0 | So in that environment you create a very carefully maintained atmosphere |
| 1:20.0 | and make sure that the plants grow in the best way possible, allowing you to create a |
| 1:24.8 | fresher, better and healthier crop than you would otherwise be able to grow. |
| 1:29.8 | So is vertical farming, I mean, by definition, it's indoors or there any instances where you have you know |
| 1:36.4 | stacked trays of things growing outdoors? |
| 1:40.3 | Well of course there are there as various hydrids possible, but typically from root of a farmer you think is completely growing indoors. |
| 1:47.5 | So it's fully indoor with the fully controlled climate and also that allows for instance to keep the pests and diseases out which means they also don't need to stray |
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