Intensive farming in a place where land is costly and scarces
I have a thought. Can we have a multistoried polyhouse.
The concept is something like this.
The base frame of the poly house will be constructed with I beam structure. The beams and columns will be of I beams. The flooring is a big questionmark, lets leave that for the moment.
lets say you have 1/2 acre of land, and a 2 storeyed structure, which means u are converting it into a 1.5 acre of land.
Lets say the output goes up by 5 times due to the controlled climate, this means from 1/2 acre u theoretically get produce of 7.5 acres of land.
Friends look at the possibilities…
It sounds enormous to me.
A lot of problems with this concept, light, temp control, logistics, cost of construction etc etc … but i think this is still an enormous concept if we really get into brainstorming this.
Request your thoughts please.
Regards
Santosh
Vertical farming is not a new concept.
As you already stated, it comes into picture when land is absolutely scarce. Without getting into detailed calculations, my hunch is the cost of construction and energy will be so prohibitive for this to be viable.
Intensive farming in a place where land is costly and scarces
I have a thought. Can we have a multistoried polyhouse.
The concept is something like this.
The base frame of the poly house will be constructed with I beam structure. The beams and columns will be of I beams. The flooring is a big questionmark, lets leave that for the moment.
lets say you have 1/2 acre of land, and a 2 storeyed structure, which means u are converting it into a 1.5 acre of land.
Lets say the output goes up by 5 times due to the controlled climate, this means from 1/2 acre u theoretically get produce of 7.5 acres of land.
Friends look at the possibilities…
It sounds enormous to me.
A lot of problems with this concept, light, temp control, logistics, cost of construction etc etc … but i think this is still an enormous concept if we really get into brainstorming this.
Request your thoughts please.
Regards
Santosh
[/quote] Santosh, make round around your area including Pune and check any existing poly/green houses equiped such structures, if yes then try to speak to owner of it to know information on the same.However try to meet Atul Kalaskers green house in Pune area.
We do five layer crop system in open fields combining half dozen crops, even if you may give further more than well come.
Cost
Yes the initial cost of construction will be high. but then what about the additional land required. How does it compare to buying 7 acres of additional land? i can understand that the 7 acres has appreciation value but then that will be somewhere in the future.
Yes agreed the cost will be high, trying to figure out how high, and what is the payback for this kind of investment with suitable crops.
A side question – does the productivity gain actually happen? is it ok to assume that with poly-house the productivity will go up by 3 times normal output?
This will have very low labor cost - maybe that will work for it. Unreliability of labor - big concern.
Water consumption - should be fraction of normal irrigation - reuse through the multi layer structure will happen by force of gravity, sounds good.
Similar examples - haven’t seen any such structure, have traveled along the Pune belt often, but not seen anything like this, if u know a specific place do let me know, will ‘must visit’. Tks.
Sunlight - There are ways to solves this. 1 - different crops need different quantity of light, they can be at different levels. The top floor can grow stuff which need max sunlight.
2. There is artificial lighting available which can grow crops in caves, have heard of this. Energy cost - yes its a question mark. (idea 1 sounds better). 3. Investment in self generated power - solar, wind, i think this will be a must.
Please need more inputs and concerns you may have.
Regards
Santosh