Is the future of farming in the cloud?

Radishes, lettuce, and other veggies from a test laboratory in Munich

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a post about Nemo's Garden, an undersea project that uses a digital twin to grow plants. Today, I would like to share information about other exciting food projects and how digital technologies can help farmers.

At the underground Siemens test lab in Munich, sowing, watering, fertilizing, and harvesting radishes, lettuce, and other vegetables is done automatically – by a gardening robot. Using simulation models – a Digital Twin of the indoor garden – calculations are performed. These measurements are compared against recommendations from botany experts to determine what the robot has to do to ensure each plant gets exactly the right quantity of nutrients and water it needs for ideal growth. Thanks to the robot's high precision, less water is consumed. It uses a vacuum pipette to gather plant seeds and sows them at regular intervals in a new patch. Then it moves on to another point to water some seedlings. Each one gets a few drops, perfectly coordinated to its needs. 

The company's vision is that farmers using digital technologies will only need to determine which plants they want to cultivate and what properties the plants should have, according to the Siemens research scientist Rudolf Sollacher. 

The farmer in the cloud

The gardening robot analyzes the current cultivation conditions, such as humidity or the nutrient content in the soil. The data used here, such as the digital twin of the garden, the algorithms, and the expert knowledge involved, is saved in the cloud to be easily shared with others and re-used.

How digital technology can help Vertical Farming

Vertical Farming is rapidly growing from a niche business in the UK into an industry that can produce larger volumes of quality, fresh food whatever the season and right on our doorsteps. Since agriculture is one of the most significant contributors to global warming, transitioning to controlled environment agricultural solutions, like vertical Farming and aquaculture, is vital to ensuring that we can responsibly feed nine billion people by mid-century.

According to a post on the Ingenuity blog, one proposed farm by Siemens would involve over 900 sensors that would collate data every half an hour for the team and create a range of text and email reports for the customer, whether they were on-site or working remotely. This information can be collected and managed by a Building Management system. Reports can then be automatically generated detailing the conditions at any given time and then compared with the actual crop yield and quality. Alarms can be raised if the conditions move away from the optimum levels, so corrective actions can be taken to ensure the quality of the produce. These can be emailed or sent via text so that action can be quickly taken. 

Precise and frequent data requisition in the vertical farms of the future will undoubtedly be critical when this information is seamlessly integrated with the building's core control systems, managing humidity, temperature, carbon dioxide, and lighting levels. Digital technologies can be vital in delivering the best performance of the farm by monitoring and controlling these essential elements. 

Vertical Farming is unlikely to replace the fields or colossal greenhouses we're familiar with. But it does have the potential to deliver increasing amounts of clean, good food close to our cities, improve our food security and create new employment opportunities. 

More about new projects and innovation in the food industry, and many other industries, at Hannover Messe 2022. Siemens offers free passes for those who want to attend in person or online. This is the registration link.