Climate change leads startups to vertical farming

As natural resources dwindle and the environment faces the growing impacts of climate change, startups worldwide are embracing vertical farming – a method that conserves space by cultivating crops in closed, controlled vertical environments without soil. This trend, which is drawing the interest of investors and consumers alike, is also being followed by Greek companies, with recent years seeing a sharp increase in the creation and development of technologies in Greece’s agricultural sector.

More specifically, Greek startups – combining robotic technologies, the use of sensors and artificial intelligence – are designing and constructing automated vertical farming systems. The products most commonly cultivated in automated systems are aromatic plants, leafy vegetables and herbs. The cultivation of these plants can be fully automated from seeding to harvest.

This process ensures faster development and automated harvesting of plants, allowing customers to purchase plants at peak freshness while extending their shelf life. Farming in a fully controlled environment using hydroponics also delivers higher yields and reduces waste of nutrients and water compared with traditional farming methods. The advantages of this type of farming include its reduction of the distance between where products are grown and where they are consumed, as well as the need for complete transparency in the cultivation process.

Startups active in this sector have formed partnerships with supermarkets in order to bring vertical farming closer to consumers, who enjoy fresher products.

What is vertical farming?

Vertical farming is an innovative method of urban farming in completely closed and controlled spaces. The plants are grown using hydroponic or aeroponic systems, with no use of soil, which means the plants can be stacked on multiple shelves, one on top of the other, vertically. Vertical farming uses artificial light from LEDs, which provide the plants with optimum lighting conditions.

The types of plants usually chosen for cultivation in vertical farms are aromatic herbs, flowers, green vegetables, mushrooms and any other plants that can be cultivated very densely, do not grow very high, and have a short life cycle but high selling price.