Nottingham Trent University to address global food challenges

The system, which grows vegetables, salads and fruit, stacked vertically and without the need for soil, is being designed and engineered by scientists at Nottingham Trent University, in partnership with Henley Associates Ltd.

"We are designing and engineering prototypes before carrying out a detailed feasibility study," said Chungui Lu, professor of sustainable agriculture at the university's school of animal, rural and environmental sciences.

"We urgently need to develop new methods to enable intensive and sustainable crop production. We need an innovative container farming system that can be manufactured at low cost, is easy to install, unaffected by climates and seasons and can produce high yields with high-quality crops with a significant reduction in carbon footprint. It's also important to reduce reliance on imports, particularly given the UK's exit from the EU.

"Each container is capable of producing three to five tonnes of crops a year. Using novel semi-mist culture methods, this will be an advanced, energy-efficient and carbon-neutral vertical farm for on-site use at retailers, schools and other organisations.

"By the end of the project we will have a new generation of containerised vertical farming that will improve UK resilience to environmental shocks and food security, and will be beneficial for both the farming industry and society."

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Source: Agritech Future