Future of Farming: “Crop One’s $40 million joint venture will build the world’s largest vertical farming facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Vertical farming produces crops in indoor farms using technology to ensure, pesticide-free, optimal growing conditions with digital and mechanical, rather than chemical or genetic, plant control. The farms can be located anywhere because temperature, humidity, light, water and plant nutrients are all provided in a controlled environment. Plants are grown in a soil-less growth medium using nutrient solutions that produce fast-growing, healthy plants.”
Crop One will construct a 130,000-square-foot facility in Dubai and is projected to harvest 6,000 pounds of greens per day. This is equivalent to approximately 1,000 acres of outdoor crops annual production. In comparison to stacked shelve indoor farming, shipping container farming is more productive. However, Crop One would need at the minimum 800 shipping containers at 40′ length in order to harvest 6,000 pounds of greens a day. For the square-footage of the planned Dubai facility, Crop One would have to “stack” their shipping container farms. Stacked shipping containers (loaded) could be stacked six containers high; all being stored in one temperature controlled warehouse with each individual shipping container having it’s own independent air handling and temperature control system. According to my estimation the Dubai indoor farm, although it will be the largest in the world, would need to stack shipping containers for the square-footage of the facility. However, it is more likely that Crop One is using more productive harvest metrics for their shipping container farms.