Here at NewTree, we love our beautiful planet earth, and we are passionate about preserving our fragile ecosystem and doing all we can to help protect, preserve and improve our beautiful earth. We as a human race are charged with caring for our beautiful Mother earth and thankfully, there are many, many green initiatives popping up worldwide proving there is a passionate movement growing to protect and repair our fragile world.


Communities, corporations, schools, are all moving forward with fantastic green initiatives that will help change the world. One of our favorite movements is urban vertical farming. Most of you reading this that are passionate about our fragile earth are likely familiar with urban vertical farming and its benefits, but for those not in the know, we're going to take a few minutes to educate you about this powerful method of farming and its benefits for our beautiful earth and its inhabitants.


Urban Vertical Farming - Explaining the Need
According to predictions, our population will increase by an additional three billion by 2050, and an estimated 80% of these people will live in urban areas.1 Clearly, we will need to produce more food to nourish our ever-expanding population. But, according to verticalfarm.com, 'At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA).'


So What Is Urban Vertical Farming?
According to CNBC.com, 'Vertical farms are high-tech grow houses that typically inhabit buildings in urban areas. Produce is grown in stacks-in many cases with no soil or sunlight-for local consumption. They utilize artificial lighting, climate control and in many cases hydroponics.'


Benefits of Urban Vertical Farming
There are so many benefits of urban vertical farming, that we'll likely need a series of blog posts to explain them all in detail! For now, we'll start with the high-level benefits.

  • Uses far less water than traditional farming methods.
  • Crops are grown indoors, so they are not subject to weather, climate or seasonal changes.
  • Produces a consistent crop due to the absence of outdoor environmental changes and pests.
  • Does not produce large amounts of pesticide runoff like traditional farming methods do. While traditional farming uses 5.2 billion pounds of pesticides worldwide, vertical farming is able to eliminate the need for toxic pesticides or herbicides due to the controlled nature of the growing environment.2
  • Lowers emissions and fuel consumption required for transportation as most urban vertical farms service local establishments, versus traditional farms that must transport crops long distances.
  • Yields larger crops, in a shorter period of time in a much smaller footprint than traditional farms.
  • Vertical farming methods do not produce pollution and emissions like traditional farming methods do.

We could go on for days talking about the multitude of benefits urban vertical farming has for our earth and its inhabitants. We hope you to follow along as we continue to explore urban vertical farming and other environmentally impactful initiatives in an effort to inspire more people to do their part to help preserve, protect and preserve our beautiful earth.

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