Houses Squeezing Out Farms
Mike Chapman.
If too many houses replace vegetable growing operations, we may have to look at alternatives such as vertical farming, says Horticulture NZ chief executive Mike Chapman.
He has always been sceptical about such methods for NZ, but we may be “stuck with it” if urbanisation keeps taking productive land, he warns.
Vertical farming was among the most interesting sessions at the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) ANZ conference in Adelaide, he says.
A New York urban agriculture consultant, Henry Gordon-Smith, spoke about why vertical farming has taken off in the US; “one simple reason is fresh,” says Chapman.
In the US, leafy greens may often need transporting long distances to large cities. “So you can get reasonably priced old buildings where you can set up vertical farming close to large cities.
“In the States that is becoming quite economical as opposed to shipping in leafy greens for days in trucks. The degree of freshness with vertical farming is very acceptable to consumers.
“The cost of rentals for your warehouses can be quite prohibitive to a successful programme, and the cost of LED lighting and efficiency. But if you get the right building, LED efficiency is also increasing.”
But you can’t vertical farm, say, onions and potatoes.
“You are talking about leafy greens, but even in the States where there are lots of vertical farms, there will always be a place for soil-grown vegetables. It just gives you a bit of diversification, especially where the vegetables aren’t grown close to the cities.”
He knows of nobody vertical farming in New Zealand.
“NZ may not have the need because of the proximity of our growing operations to the cities, but as houses [replace] growing vegetables this may become one of the options.
“I have always been a little sceptical about it because we should be able to grow in our soil, but as we move forward we may find we’re stuck with it.”
Meanwhile, robots will replace some jobs but innovative people will always be needed in the workforce, says Chapman on another message from the conference.
“But the innovation is different from that required 10 years ago and even today. The skills for the future are creativity, problem solving, advanced reasoning, complex judgments, social interaction and emotional intelligence.
“In the workforces that are developing, a whole different set of skills is required which we should be training for and working on for the future.
“Robots will take away quite a few functions in future and the skills you must look to are skills that robots can’t do. Robots don’t have emotional intelligence, etc.”
Chapman says there was also much discussion about R&D in Australia, which is complicated. Much was said about research being dislocated from growers because of the complexity of the system. And too much research money is being spent on bureaucracy rather than the actual work.
“So you are not getting growers and researchers having the strong interaction we have in NZ to a far, far greater degree.
“In NZ we haven’t got federal versus state. We might think our system is complicated but the Australian system makes ours look rudimentary and straightforward.”