With new technologies and conceptions brewing, modes of agriculture are also taking different exciting turns. One such innovation is Aeroponics, which means growing in the air in its simplest literary form.
In the precise context of agriculture, it is a technique for cultivating plants in nutrient-rich mist surroundings without requiring soil.
According to market research estimates, it has gained notable traction over the past years, growing to over US$870 million in 2022 from US$523.7 million in 2017. The growth rate indicates that it will soon become a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide.
Several advantages drive the growth of Aeroponics, but the most significant one is its minimal water requirement. It needs 80-90% less water than soil-based farming and can offer more plants in less time than traditional agriculture on the fields.
Moreover, it does not require having a large amount of land to carry out meaningful cultivation in volume and variety. Its growth science, which we will discuss in detail, makes it environmentally friendly with significantly fewer carbon footprints.
Several businesses constitute the vendor services, driving growth and augmenting leadership for the category, including:
- AeroFarms LLC,
- AEssense Corp
- Agrihouse Brands
- Altihouse Farms
- Barton Breeze
- Bifarm Tech
- Biopolus
- Bowery Farming
- CleanGreens Solutions
- Evergreen Farm
- Freight Farms
- Future Growing
- Good Life Growing
- Hexagro Urban Farming
- LettUs Grow
- Living Green Farm
- Neofarms GmbH, and more.
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The Science Behind Aeroponics
To start with, Aeroponics does not require soil for the produce to grow. Instead, roots suspended in the air are irrigated by a nutrient-rich mist. In other words, the air serves as the land and the mist as the water source.
To absorb the nutrient-rich mist, the suspension of the roots has to happen in a fully or partially closed atmosphere. The closed atmosphere must be weather-controlled for the suspended roots to receive the right amount of light and air along with the mist.
Cultivation in a closed and controlled atmosphere implies more oxygen for the plants for food production and significantly fewer chances of pests and other plant-decaying vulnerabilities.
Studies show that in aeroponics, plants have 100% access to carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, between 450 ppm to 780 ppm. It also consumes 70% less water than hydroponics, the practice of growing plants in a nutrient solution with or without a soilless substrate to provide physical support.
In aeroponics, biodegradable foams cover a plant’s lower stem area to eventually connect it to or insert it into the aeroponics chamber apertures. The nutrient-rich liquid is dispersed in these chambers through the mode of spraying in automated, frequent intervals.
Innovations in the Aeroponics Space
The role of technology in Aeroponics is evident across all the phases of its lifecycle, including the accurate moderation of environmental factors such as water conservation, space optimization, and pest and disease control.
For the convenience of our discussions, we have segmented technology’s role in Aeroponics into four verticals: environment-monitoring sensors, use of IoT, Data, and AI to make the production process smarter, technology to improve dispensers, and renewable energy techniques.
Environment-Monitoring Sensors
These sensors monitor a host of environmental factors in real-time, including temperature, humidity, and nutrient levels. They empower farmers to make informed decisions on how to better their process. Additionally, these solutions come with automated control system integration options to adjust to changing environmental conditions.
Use of AI, IoT, and Data
These solutions, often mentioned together as Industry 4.0, help optimize efficacy in multiple ways. They can automate repetitive tasks, detect plant diseases early, suggest suitable preventive measures, and analyze large chunks of data that are crucial to plant growth.
Technology to Improve Dispensers
Dispenser-related technologies play a pivotal role in making aeroponics successful. The job of the dispensers in aeroponics is to deliver nutrients and water to plants. These dispensers include atomizers, sprayers, nebulizers, ultrasonic dispersion, water pumps, and centrifugal pumps.
Having the best-in-class dispenser technology ensures that plants get the precise dosage. Automated dispenser technology helps reduce manual labor and save resources.
Renewable Energy Techniques
Aeroponics is a suitable farming technique to leverage multiple renewable, alternative energy options. One can power aeroponics farms through solar or wind energy sources, reducing the reliance on environmentally damaging grid power. Prudent use of renewable energy can also be significantly cost-effective for aeroponics farmers when they achieve a scale.
In an ideal scenario, all these technological interventions should make optimal contributions to making aeroponics an efficient agriculture choice.
However, since aeroponics is an emerging technique, still growing in its maneuverings, it will take time to maximize the returns on each of these investments.
In this context, we must also remember that it took many years of research and several trials and errors on the applied front to reach where we’ve reached today.
The Evolution Timeline of Aeroponics
The term Aeroponics is nearly 70 years old, coined by F.W. Went in 1957 for the air-growing process to cultivate coffee and tomato crops. R J Stoner’s company GTi first manufactured aeroponics apparatus for commercial use.
Mr. Stoner marketed it as the Genesis Rooting System. He is also considered the ‘father of American aeroponics technology.’ In 2013, Dewey Davidson, a longtime backyard hobbyist, gardener, and inventor, patented the Dewey Mister 2013.
Since then, new inventions, innovations, and technological concepts have helped aeroponics grow year over year to realize its potential.
Transformative Businesses in the field of Aeroponics
#1. Aerofarms
AeroFarms has been one of the leading players in this space, with its presence since 2004. Some features that have helped it stand out from the rest and establish category leadership over the past two decades have been its expertise in creating fully controlled environments and the ability to work with optimized plant biology setups, smarter data, and patented growing cloth mediums.
Its proprietary technology has optimized crop growth with 95% less water and zero pesticides.
Building cutting-edge aeroponics capabilities at Aerofarms has been about creating an ideal interdisciplinary space for innovation to thrive. It is a space where horticulture intersects with genetics, engineering, food safety, data science, nutrition, and more.
Aerofarms have grown more than 550 different varieties of plants to date, including leafy greens, berries, tomatoes, and more.
Founded by David Rosenberg, Ed Harwood, and Marc Oshima and headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, United States, Aerofarms is a fully funded business with eleven funding rounds so far. It has thirteen investors in total, including five lead investors. The farm raised more than US$70 million on September 28th, 2023.
#2. LettUs Grow
LettUs Grow has been another category leader in this space, with its team of engineers working with hectare-scale greenhouse designers to develop the next breakthrough in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), known as Aeroponic Rolling Benches.
This cutting-edge innovation, with LettUs Grow’s patented nozzle-free aquaponics offerings, will result in highly enhanced levels of growing efficiency and superior yield at far reduced levels of water consumption.
The patented benches will be available in modular and scalable, easy-to-install formats. It will be applicable for a diverse crop portfolio, engineered for a universal fit into commercial single-layer greenhouses and indoor farming stacks.
The company claims that deploying these solutions can increase yields by up to 20% for commercial growers with far reduced water consumption compared to hydroponics.
Founded by Ben Crowther, Charlie Guy, and Jack Farmer and headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, LettUs Grow is a Series A startup. It has had six funding rounds so far. In its latest funding round, it raised 2.5 million pound-sterlings on March 23, 2023.
#3. Barton Breeze
Barton Breeze, another leading name in aeroponics, has already proved its effectiveness in more than 800,000 square ft. of automated farms in India, with more than sixty varieties of plants grown, resulting in over 1,450,000 kilograms of food grown yearly.
The World Economic Forum recognized Barton Breeze’s efforts in a March 22, 2022, report for already having 10 hectares of vertical farms under cultivation, producing 3,250 tonnes of crops from more than 65 different crop varieties.
The firm raised 66 million Indian Rupees in its seed round on February 28th, 2023. Barton Breeze has its headquarters in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It has been in operation since 2018.
#4. Aeroponics Saffron Farming
In another instance, a unique Indian startup from Gandhinagar, the state of Gujarat, has developed an authentic way of cultivating saffrons through aeroponics. It is unique because it cultivates a traditionally cooler climate crop in the hot and dry atmosphere of the state.
The startup was founded in December 2021 by Sahil Ninama and Mayank Dabhi and was incubated at the Swarnim Incubation Center of Swarnim Startup and Innovation University.
Not only has the startup solved the challenges relating to weather, but it has ensured that the crop is cultivable four times a year at one-fourth of the traditional production cost. The founders also claim it has noted no quality deterioration, even at increased production levels.
The Commercial Scenario of Aeroponics: A Global Context
A report published by the World Economic Forum believes that aeroponics would emerge as a truly global alternative to traditional cultivation. Since it helps crops to grow without soil and minimal water usage, it offers hope to dry regions where cultivation through known means is difficult.
The WEF has noted the utility of aeroponics in a country like Jordan, among others, where water is scarce and farms take up more than 52% of the country’s water supply. Recognizing this growing interest in sustainable farming methods globally, a survey has identified more than 110 aeroponic company startups in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and India.
Aeroponics: Opportunities and Challenges
In opportunities, aeroponics requires moderate infrastructure. All it needs is a light source to enable the plants to photosynthesize and store energy, a cloth-like medium to separate the plants from their roots and give them support to grow, and a nutrient-heavy mist in the solution chamber for the root systems to absorb.
Since aquaponics works on recycling the nutrient solution, it does not waste water. However, it still requires electricity to run pumps and artificial light to help the plants grow.
For Aeroponics to truly thrive, training and educating the farmers is a must. The farmer requires continuous upskilling to keep up with a field thriving with innovation and the advent of new technologies. One of the areas where training is a must is how to keep the system clean.
Altogether, success in aeroponics is about successfully handling a combination of factors. Improper handling of one could fail the entire system.
Aeroponics must also have a robust structure that allows the proper supply of light and air, especially to the exposed plant parts.
Aeroponics, functioning through two major components, roots and canopy, is also partly dependent on hydroponics. Thus, any farmer keen to leverage aeroponics must have proper knowledge of hydroponics. For instance, aeroponics has to have a backup system for supplying the necessary nutrients for the plants if the existing system fails.
A high-pressure (80 psi) diaphragm pump is used in high-pressure aeroponics to supply nutrients to the roots through 20-50 mm mist heads. Such contingency knowledge is necessary for running an aeroponics farm successfully.
It can only come from holistic training and education on how cultivation works for various plants and crops under diverse circumstances.
Aeroponics: What the Future Holds
The population of the planet is on a steep increase, and so, too, will be the demand for food. According to estimates put out by the United Nations, the global population is expected to reach nearly 11 billion by 2100.
The supply of natural water and land cannot grow proportionally, as these are limited resources akin to fossil fuels. Traditional methods of agriculture consume nearly 70% of the world’s water. If this trend continues, it is projected that nearly 2 billion people will be living in water-stressed areas by 2025.
Aeroponics has already emerged as a solution to these challenges. According to numbers put out by AeroFarms, its techniques require only 1% of the land that would have been a requirement in conventional agriculture. The farm believes that aeroponics may prove 390 times more efficient in using lands to grow the same volume of crops, producing up to 26 harvests each year.
But aeroponics will only realize its true potential if it offers true scalability. To become a complementing system to conventional agriculture, it would have the power to be applied successfully to many more areas to match the production volume our planet needs.
With innovations thriving, the possibility of having aeroponics as a viable alternative to land-based farming is no longer a distant reality.
Click here to read how robotics is revolutionizing agriculture.
Source : securities.io