Japan: Automated indoor vertical farm to produce 30,000 heads of lettuce daily

The future of local food production, at least in some densely-populated areas, might look a lot more like a factory than a field, and may reduce labor costs considerably by taking the farmer out of the loop in favor of automation. Using highly efficient methods for plant growth, such as hydroponics and aeroponics, can reduce water loss to a minimum, as well as enable the recycling and reuse of water, and engaging energy-efficient LED lighting that can be 'tuned' to plant-friendly spectrums can cut indoor farming energy demands, and when coupled with assembly line techniques, can provide perpetual harvests every day of the year, regardless of the weather outside.

That's a far cry from the backyard garden or neighborhood farm, but it's also a method of producing more food throughout the year, closer to where it will be eaten. If you want fresh lettuce in the winter, and you live in a climate with cold weather, you'll either need your own heated greenhouse or indoor growing space (and probably some supplemental lighting), or you'll need to buy it from someone growing it indoors locally, or you'll (most likely) buy it from a grocery store that imports the lettuce from far away. So unless we all start eating completely seasonally and locally (and probably stop eating lettuce in the winter), most of our food will continue to come by way of a fairly lengthy journey. In light of that, urban indoor farms, especially vertically-stacked farms that can grow food in much smaller spaces than conventional soil-based farms, could be one way of reducing the food miles in our diets.

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