What is Vertical Farming?
The term “vertical farming” covers a range of quite similar technologies. Ultimately, vertical farming is all about growing plants indoors under controlled/ optimised conditions, under lights. The most popular and well-known application is based on a “hydroponic” system where nutrients are conveyed through water to the plants’ roots. I like to call vertical farming a “5-Star wellness hotel for plants”. Conditions are optimised for nature to perform at its best and for plants to grow unhindered (by e.g. poor weather conditions, pests or animals).
What is Fischer Farms?
Fischer Farms is a food company where we design our own agriculture technology solutions to optimise hydroponic methods of growing plants indoors. Presently we grow leafy green salad and herbs and our ambition is to grow soft fruit and even high calorific staples like rice, wheat and soy in vertical farm installations, at commercially-viable prices, across the world.
I am the Chairman of Fischer Farms and we currently have two sites - Lichfield and Norwich. Our Norwich farm is coming on stream in late 2023 and we believe it is the biggest vertical farm in the world (25,000m2, with the capacity to expand to 75,000m2).
What are the benefits of Vertical Farming?
The benefits of vertical farming are huge. Vertical farming has purpose written all over it.
Firstly, it is a sustainable message on steroids! Our farms use less than 5% of the water required for traditional farming, need no pesticides, herbicides, or insecticides, and can run on 100% renewable energy (which we’re busy installing).
The produce we grow is of the highest quality and consistency, staying fresher for longer, helping retailers and consumers significantly reduce food waste.
Vertical farming is a revolutionary technology whose time has come, capable of producing yields 250 times greater than traditional farming, delivering quality produce all year round in an incredibly sustainable way and in an environment unaffected by weather conditions and water availability.
Vertical farming can be a key flexible resource in establishing food security across the world. We see this not only in a post-Brexit Britain, helping to avoid empty retailer shelves each winter but also contributing to a solution to food scarcity in vulnerable parts of the word already struggling from land erosion, depletion of natural water supplies and the increasing challenges of climate change.
What’s unique about Fischer farms?
At Fischer Farms we employ scale to deliver accessible unit pricing. We believe the benefits of vertical farming should be available for all. While the product we grow in our vertical farms is of excellent quality and consistency, we don’t believe vertically-farmed products should be premium priced. We build at scale and we invest in automation in order to keep the unit cost low. If we really want to grow high-calorific staples in vertical farms attached to large renewable energy sources across the world, we need to do this in a cost-effective way.
What does Vertical Farming mean for traditional farmers?
I am a farmer’s son from the west of Ireland, so I have traditional agriculture in my blood. Vertical Farming is not designed to put traditional farmers out of business – certainly that is not our objective at Fischer Farms. There is much that is wrong with the modern agriculture and food industries. I believe vertical farming can be part of the solution to rectify these problems. We want vertical farming to complement traditional farming well into the future.
What does Vertical Farming mean to me?
You can see by the above why I’m involved in vertical farming. It’s hard to not be motivated and excited about all that this breakthrough technology is already delivering – for the consumer, for retailers, for investors and for the planet. I’ve always felt a sense of purpose in any venture I’ve been involved with. I’m hard pressed to name another business which delivers purpose so thoroughly than Fischer Farms.