Digging Deep into Transforming Agriculture

How are current systems damaging the soil?

In the first episode of the Cool Hominids podcast, we had host Peet Denny discussing the agricultural revolution with Antony Yousefian, the co-founder of Bx. His mission since 2020 has been to fuse upcoming technology with nature to reverse climate change.

We need to stop thinking of soil as an innate medium in abundance to us, and instead as a living, breathing ecosystem essential to life. Antony explains how our soil holds three times as much carbon as the atmosphere, and so to be worried about destroying our atmosphere has to involve worries about destroying our soil.

Soil degradation is the loss of a land’s production capacity due to a number of processes including soil biodiversity, fertility and degradation. Whilst this can be a natural process, it is accelerated tenfold by intensive farming processes like deforestation, overgrazing, intensive cultivation, forest fires and construction work. Tilling is a farming process of turning the soil to disrupt weeds, pests and to prepare for seedlings. However these processes accelerate surface runoff and soil erosion, disrupt the organic carbon and plant nutrients.

Source: Our World in Data

Borrowing from the Future

This leads us to how we’ve been temporarily trying to fix this. Chemicals. For chemically balanced soil, the essential elements (macronutrients and micronutrients) need to be in balance, the pH of the soil should match the plants, and the soil should be free of contaminants. The top four elements are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen and a neutral pH of 6.3–6.8 is ideal for most plants. Intensive farming processes have depleted soils of these naturally occurring chemicals, and now try to counteract this by adding fertiliser to supply nutrients to make it more fertile. Antony Yousefian explains this as ‘borrowing from the future. As farmers try to supply cheaper and quicker food, the incentive for doing so (quicker money, more government backing) increases. This means they are less worried about killing biodiversity in the soil using fertiliser and instead use intensive farming processes to rapidly grow the crops. This is a short term solution.

Why vertical farming?

Vertical farming is the practice of producing food on vertically inclined surfaces, instead of one level like in fields or greenhouses. It uses Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) technology which allows for artificial control of temperature, light and humidity to make ideal growing conditions for plants. It comes with a long list of positives, ranging from more than just no soil and no sunlight needed.

Firstly, no more seasonal vegetables. Due to artificially adapting the environment there will no longer be ‘off season’ fruit or vegetables. These farms will be able to produce all types of produce throughout the entire year. There should also be less post-harvest spoilage and food waste since most of the products can be sold in the same building where it is grown. It is estimated that as much as 30% of harvests are lost every year due to spoilage and so reducing this would be ideal. Equally, vertical farming allows for the production of more crops per square footage of the growing area. This could be up to as much as 1 acre of an indoor area that offers equivalent production to at least 4–6 acres of outdoor capacity.

Vertical farms use a smaller amount of water compared to normal outside farms. This is as the methods used are either hydroponic where roots are grown in a small amount of water with nutrients, or aeroponics where the roots of crops are sprayed with nutrient-filled water or mist. This means that less water is needed, and all the water given is taken up directly by the plants allowing for no wastage of water into the soil. It can even promote water recycling where urban waste (including our wastewater) could be composted and used for farming.

Quite logically, as vertical farms are inside they do not get affected by any weather conditions. As global warming is getting worse, more unfavourable weather conditions like hurricanes, droughts or floods are becoming more common. These are more than capable of causing harvest loss, and so by farming inside it plants can be protected from these.

In comparison to intensive farming methods, vertical farms allow for increased production of organic crops without the use of chemical pesticides. This allows for increased safety for farmers and the environment. As it does not disturb animals and trees in inland areas, it is good for biodiversity as well. Crucially, vertical farming reduces the need for food imports, giving growers the ability to grow food closer to the locations where it will be distributed and consumed.

In the podcast, Antony explores the long term viability of solutions like vertical farming and greenhouses, which he suggests serving a purpose in the short to medium term, but may need to be paired with an additional solution to significantly shift the current impact of the agricultural sector on the environment.

To find out more about Vertical Farming, click here.

The impact of Transforming Agriculture

Hearing and researching AgTech, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between what people hope to get out of the new practices and some of the UN goals, namely Goal 2: zero hunger. This aims to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. By reducing harvest loss, either by reducing spoilage or strictly controlled conditions, gives us the ability to start to tackle world hunger with the ideal of one day being able to feed all.

How can growers reverse climate change?

Antony Yousefian discusses challenging the narrative for crop growers, to stop thinking in the old knowledge ways and instead focus on newer, sustainable systems. He suggests that this is due to no incentive for the newer systems, and no punishment or tax for older, and less sustainable practices. His vision for the future is for our food to help tackle climate change or as he puts it ‘food should be a solution to climate change’.

Is this on us as consumers?

It is difficult to say whether climate change is on us as consumers. Obviously, we can make better choices each day and hope this will add up, however if bad choices are made for us (groceries from non-regenerative practices) then how could we ever be better. Antony Yousefian suggests starting by watching “Kiss the Ground” on Netflix, so let us know if you’ve watched this and share your thoughts with us!