On March 16, the "vertical farm" building built by Taoyuan Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. in Oriental New Town was topped out.

The 46-storey building is beautiful in the shape of an open fan and an erected seashell. The façade of the building features a state-of-the-art smart curtain wall that allows more sunlight to shine through floor-to-ceiling windows and automatic sensors.

The building also features large solar panels, a high-tech irrigation system, and an incinerator for incinerating waste to produce energy.

Moreover, it is not difficult to manage this vertical farm, Galaxy Intelligent Technology has designed intelligent control software and machines for the farm, through guò biosensors and various monitoring systems, to accurately and carefully take care of plants, arrange light, guide water pumps, etc., and the temperature is also accurately controlled to ensure that the nutrient solution is evenly sprayed.

At the same time, modern technology is used to minimize waste and energy use, and to promote recycling.

The vertical farm building will be used to grow several species of freshwater fish and dozens of vegetables and fruits to feed 40% of the 150,000 people in the Oriental New City.

By 2025, the world's urban population will grow from 3.5 billion in 2013 to 5.5 billion, with Xinhua accounting for 925 million, and by 2050, the global urban population is likely to grow to 6.4 billion, while Xinhua will reach 1.2 billion.

From now on, more than half of the world's urban population is living in cities, and the traditional agricultural production space is shrinking, forcing people to seek new farm models for the next generation.

Vertical farms, also known as "urban farming", "indoor farms" or "vertical farming", have evolved from fields to multi-storey floored farms, with each floor being a piece of farmland. It is used to grow and raise various crops and livestock.

All crops are grown in a controlled environment. and use biosensors to check for maturity. It can be planted and harvested 365 days a year, and more than 20 crops can be harvested a year, but with traditional cultivation techniques, only one or two crops can be harvested a year.

Vertical farms have a robust environmental control system that has many advantages over outdoor farming, and it is not affected by the weather and does not have to worry about encountering harsh climatic conditions such as drought, floods, frosts, epidemics, etc.

Grow indoors. There is better flexibility in the selection of basic elements needed for crop growth, such as location, temperature, and humidity.

With clean room technology, "indoor farms" will be protected from pests and will not require herbicides or pesticides at all, which means no agricultural emissions.

Vertical farms are inherently urban and can be shipped directly to where they are needed, resulting in significant savings in the cost of food transportation and reduced pollution from transportation.

Vertical farms can also free up traditional farms to plant more trees to green the environment, thereby reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Slowing down the global warming process.

Compared to traditional farming, vertical farms not only increase the yield of crops at each harvest. The number of harvests will also increase tenfold, while saving 80% of land, 90% of water and 100% of pesticides, and the cost of transporting food will be almost negligible.

It is calculated that as many as 150 30-story farms could feed the 8.2 million people of New York City.

The reason why vertical farms are difficult to scale is because of energy costs, after all, traditional arable land has free sunlight, while indoor farms require artificial light.

At present, the efficiency of LED lighting systems used to promote plant growth is less than 30%, which makes the production cost of vertical farms very high.

Taoyuan Group has developed a grow light with a conversion efficiency of up to 80%, which greatly reduces the cost of light and makes vertical farms have great profit space.

Bioactive fluids are more suitable for hydroponics and can more than double the yield of various crops.

In addition to soilless aqueous solution cultivation, there is also a soilless cultivation method - aerosol cultivation, which is to transport nutrients to plants through guò nutrient-rich aerosol.

Aeroponics is a soilless cultivation technology that uses a spray device to atomize the nutrient solution into small droplets, which are sprayed directly into the plant roots to provide the water and nutrients needed for plant growth.

Compared to conventional agriculture, hydroponics is 70% more efficient, and aeroponics is 70% more efficient than hydroponics.

This is crucial for future astronautics and extraterrestrial colonization.

Aeroponic cultivation method is not only the most water-saving, but also the most fertilizer-saving, the planting environment is not limited, it solves the contradiction of water, air and nutrient supply that is difficult to solve in traditional soil cultivation, so that the crop root system is in the most suitable environmental conditions, so as to give full play to the growth potential of crops, so that plant growth and biomass are greatly improved.

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Just at a site less than ten kilometers from the vertical farm building, there are also ambitious plans underway.

In order to conduct some prerequisites for space stations, spaceships, space cities, and alien colonies, and to provide a blueprint for the ecosystem, the Eastern Group and Taoyuan Group have cooperated with the Ministry of Aerospace of the People's Republic of China, the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other institutions to jointly invest more than 3 billion yuan to prepare for the establishment of a large-scale fully enclosed artificial ecological circulation system - Biosphere 3.

The blueprint is the "Biosphere II", a real facility invested and built by the country in the last century, which aims to conduct ecological and environmental research in a closed state and improve human understanding of the planet they live on.

Biosphere 2 was previously the world's largest closed artificial ecological circulation system, located in the desert north of the city of Tucson, so named after the Earth itself called Biosphere One.

It is used to prove that it is possible for humans to survive in an enclosed environment, with the help of some sunlight, and will also be used for future extraterrestrial settlement and manned space exploration.

Formed by a meeting of scientists in 1982, the Biosphere 2 project was built in 1987 and took eight years to complete.

It covers an area of 12,800 square meters, with a volume of 141,600 cubic meters, consisting of 80,000 white-painted steel beams and 6,000 pieces of glass, at a cost of $150 million.

It's a giant enclosed environment with settlements, rainforests, mangrove swamps, savannahs, deserts, and even a "mini-ocean" that can accommodate coral reefs and make waves.

There is also a large intensive agricultural area for growing food, equipped with complete agricultural equipment, including a threshing machine.

In a closed state, this closed structure can be used as a real base for colonization of the moon and Mars, a shelter after a potential nuclear war, and can also be used as a habitable real yàn room to conduct large-scale research on the entire ecosystem and environment of the earth.

There are about 4,000 species in the biosphere, including about 3,000 species of animals and plants, and about 1,000 species of microorganisms, which come from all over the world.

In 1991, a total of 8 researchers, 4 men and 4 women, were stationed in Biosphere 2 for the first time, and in 1993, they walked out and stayed in it for 21 months.

During this period, these "biosphere people" ate all the food they grew themselves, drank circulating water, and breathed oxygen from plants, and accumulated a wealth of scientific data and practical experience in their respective research fields.

In 1994, the scientist moved in for the second time, and after 10 months of work, he walked out in 1995. During this period, they conducted extensive and systematic scientific research on air, water and waste recycling, and food production.

Unfortunately, the researchers found too many loopholes and problems in the real yàn: there was no perfect and rigorous research plan; Biosphere 2's oxygen failed to circulate; Cement buildings affect the normal carbon cycle; Rainfall is out of control, most plants and animals are unable to grow or reproduce normally, and they are dying out faster than expected; There are also pests and diseases that are rampant, black ants crawling all over buildings, and so on.

In the end, after extensive discussions, scientists confirmed that Biosphere 2 failed and failed to achieve the intended goals of the original designer, and also proved that under the known scientific and technological conditions, it will be difficult for human beings to survive forever without the earth.

Although this large-scale project ended in failure, Biosphere 2 is a masterpiece in the history of human science in terms of scale, technical difficulty, complexity, and results, and provides valuable lessons for those who come after it.

Biosphere 3 has learned lessons from more advanced technology, a larger footprint and better preparation, including the use of new building materials and equipment.

On the future "Tiangong" space station, the growth and cultivation of yàn plants in a weightless environment will also be realized.

Countries such as Lijian and Rakshasa have cultivated more than 100 kinds of plants such as peas, wheat, corn, rice, onions, and orchids on the space station, and animals such as fruit flies, spiders, and fish can also grow and breed in weightlessness.

If these technologies can be applied to space navigation and extraterrestrial colonization, the problem of human survival will be easily solved. (To be continued......)