Vertical farm in Nice, a new plan for the future
A lot of the world resources are used to produce food. But there is still one huge problem: people keep dying of hunger. So, this means that we use more and more resources to produce more food but starvation still exists. The problem is to find a way to produce food more efficiently with fewer natural resources and stop the famine.
We decided to create a vertical farm in Nice. Why this city? Because it's not too big nor too small, it counts approximately 350 000 people. Since it is located in the south-east of France, near the sea, the weather is good for growing crops, besides the citizens are interested about the idea of organic farming.
We plan to buy a building in the center of Nice. In the ground floor, there will be a grocery store and a restaurant to sell our products. On the upper floors, we will grow different products depending on the season, such as tomatoes, salads, radish, cucumbers, zucchinis, fennel, herbs…
The floors will be equipped with windows as large as possible, completed by power-LEDs, which usually allow saving more than 50% of energy compared with traditional lighting.
The electricity will mainly come from solar energy, partly produced with solar panels installed on the outside walls of the building.
Regarding the water, the rain will be gathered on the roof and conveyed through pipes to be stored in a tank. On the first floor, there will be fishes. The water filtrated by the plants will be poured in the aquariums, the fishes will add nutrients to it, and then the water will go back to the plants and so on.
We also plan to provide several services linked with our activity, such as eco-tourism and cooperative cooking. And in order to make it work well, professional farmers will be involved in this modern farm project.
To ensure the viability of our activity and its development, it must be profitable in order to cover our expenses. Our main source of income will be the sale of our vegetable production in a grocery store and a restaurant. The restaurant will be like any other restaurant, serving dishes, but the chef will only use the vegetables produced in our building. Since there won't be any middleman, the costs will be way lower, thus our profit will be much more important than if we had one.
External funds would come from donations and sponsors.
The farm will provide the population of Nice with nice activities such as:
- a cheese workshop will be built along with other workshops in order to transform some of our products by making marmalade, juice, dry fruits … etc
4- Environmental aspects:
Despite that this type of farming requires way less energy than any other type, there will be of course wastes recycling, the use of solar energy and water
The environment actions will be:
* To select and recycle waste;
5- Communication and advertisement
In order to spread the word about our new building and the vertical farming, our marketing and sales departments suggested three strategies. First of all, there is the traditional one, it means that we use posters in the street, billboards in small and big format, advertising spots on the television but also on signboards. We have to notice that people who care about bio products, come from different age range. A more direct advertisement has been suggested, that is to say kiosks throughout the city of Nice, to have people discover the products. Another type of promotion has been recommended: using shelves heads’. This way the consumers' attention will be caught in the supermarket. This is called trade marketing.
A more modern way, which means to using the Internet, is named digital marketing. A specialized company will create a website to promote our products and the Vertical Farming.
The third and final way to promote our business is to open the doors to visitors, at the launch of our project, hence they would discover the whole process and meet the farmers that will cultivate, hopefully, their vegetables.
It seems now necessary to talk about the International Agricultural Show in Paris, where all agricultural companies of the world meet and promote their work. This type of show is beneficial for our Vertical Farming, because it could help us expand our network and find sponsors and investors.
We aim to settle this Vertical Farm as an example of sustainable food production, for other cities and countries. It is also another way to make “green business”, as well as preserving the planet. This plan also includes a social responsibility structure, that’s why it is a global plan for sustainable development.