Vertical farming, or farms in the sky, sounds well sexy doesn’t it, conjuring up images of sci-fi clean rooms growing everything from ginger to grapes.

The truth is a little bit less sci-fi but maybe more net zero. Vertical farming allows, in general, salad crops (lettuce, rocket, kale etc), to be grown without soil, in vertical trays up to 6m in height.

As the plants are in a controlled environment there is no need for fertilisers or pesticides and they can be grown all year round.

In this episode I spoke to Jack Farmer from LettUs Grow, who have been using aeroponic (soil free) warehouses to grow crops with on average a 70% increase in yield.

He explained how vertical farming could help developed nations reduce emissions from agriculture and if some of this science can be used in hotter more arid environments.

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