Grant: Alliance Grants

Our society is facing a long-term decreasing available stock of agricultural land per capita. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), by 2050, arable land per person will decrease to one-third of the amount available in 1970. Using aquaponics, high-rise farms, with many levels on the same footprint of land, provide alternatives that can increase the amount of agricultural land available. Aquaponics extends the model of greenhouse hydroponic farming, with better requirements for herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. Aquaponics requires much less water than outdoor farming because gray water is recycled and there is less evaporation. Today, with demands for energy efficiency, connectivity and sustainability, the food industry needs to engage researchers to bring connected cyber-physical systems to aquaponics technologies. This research program aims to bring the initial model of vertical farming, developed in previous decades, to a state-of-the-art level and use Canadian-made technologies to address technology gaps in the existing vertical farm processes. Focusing on Industry 4.0 principles of integrated cyber-physical systems, and following the previous ENGAGE grant research, where we designed an intelligent racking system, this research will design, prototype and test, cyber-physical vertical farming systems.