An American vertical farming startup Plenty aims this year to start its innovation labs where crops will grow upright, not lay on the ground. The first such farming lab will open in China. Vegetables will be grown there with hydroponics technology – no soil and minimum watering. The startup will set up two demo farms in Beijing and Shanghai, where customers will be able to taste fresh produce. The farm itself is LED-lit 20-foot-tall towers, used to grow leafy greens. Now Plenty is growing 15 kinds of greens, from basil to curly cale. The results are impressive: crop yield is 300 to 350 times higher than in the fields or greenhouses while water usage is down to 1% of the traditional method. These are the facts for agro-businesses to consider! It should also be noted that new countries are interested in these experiments. Hydroponic farms are being set up now from U.A.E. to Singapore. Analysts expect the, the world market for vertical farming to reach $ 6 Bln in 2022. Read more on the technology on Bloomberg: https://goo.gl/1LkLxF
