The only way to grow is up

Experts claim that by 2050, there will be more than 10 billion people in the world to feed. Here in Australia, our rapidly growing and increasingly urban population is already putting mounting pressure on farmers and the resources they rely upon. It’s clear that we need to think about new, smarter and more efficient ways to produce nutritious food.

One Australian agtech startup has been doing just that, producing “hyperlocal”, clean and green mixed salads and micro-herbs out of Australia’s first and only commercial-scale vertical farm. As well as saving water and reducing the use of chemicals, the aim of vertical farming is to make farming in urban environments possible, and to grow food in close proximity to the market that eats it: it’s food for locals, by locals, which we know makes it far more nutritious.

In the video below, I visit Sprout Stack, based in Brookvale on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, to get a closer look into to how it grows its produce year-round in recycled shipping containers.