Aeroponics brings a huge raft of benefits to the table, from better use of resources to greater food access year-round. Considering the number of people who are hungry or live in food deserts, we need all the help we can get to cultivating sustainable food systems. Here are just a few of the benefits aeroponics can offer.
Preserving Water
It’s no secret that water is one of the most valuable, and one of the most endangered, resources on the planet. Sure, poor planning is an old story, but it’s coming home to roost like never before in the 21st century’s fight for “blue gold.”
Take the drama unfolding in the American Southwest, as reported by USC: “Once hailed as the ‘American Nile,’ the Colorado River spans 1,450 miles and supplies nearly 40 million people across seven states plus northern Mexico with drinking water, irrigation for farmland and hydroelectric power. But after decades of drought and overuse, major reservoirs along the river are drying up.”
The University continues, “As the Colorado River levels drop to historic lows, tensions are rising between the seven states that depend on its flow – Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Their original agreement for distributing the river water lacked foresight and failed to account for dire circumstances like long-term drought.”
This will have severe implications for livelihoods, habitation, and population in those states – and in the surrounding areas that are served by their exports.
All is far from lost, though, despite what prophets of doom may predict. When it comes to water and agriculture, the news is actually pretty mixed. On the one hand, says Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, “Of the 3 percent of fresh water on Earth, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global fresh water usage.” That’s a truly shocking amount and seems at first glance like a negative.
However, if we can figure out how to reduce our agricultural water usage, this immediately becomes good news. Look at how much water we can free up simply by learning to reuse it within aeroponics! Which, happily, is easier than you’d think.
As Embry-Riddle explains, “aeroponic systems, which reduce agricultural water usage by over 90 percent, are a promising solution to supply an increasing quantity of crops while simultaneously using less water.” This number may go as high as 95 percent efficiency in some systems and ranks considerably above hydroponics (75 percent) and aquaponics (80 percent).
This is especially important in water-scarce regions of the world, such as many African countries. Because water is so hard to come by, agricultural options are extremely limited. When people are forced to walk several kilometers a day, only to bring home enough water for drinking and washing, they are almost guaranteed to face malnourishment. Farming solutions that severely curtail water loss, such as aeroponics, are critical to meeting this ongoing need.
Water preservation makes it very important to use the right liners in aeroponics reservoirs, which we will tackle below. For now, it’s critical to discuss another resource for which aeroponics has major implications.
Going Soilless
Although the phrase “soil crisis” is far from common, it shouldn’t surprise us to hear it. The Dust Bowl was nothing other than that – a decimation of North American prairies that had been stretched beyond endurance by aggressive farming practices that permanently damaged the ecology of those regions.
With aeroponics, though, we don’t need access to soil or any other growing media. And that in turn means we no longer need to rely on the Earth herself for arable land. The amount of acreage that would support a greenhouse is far greater than that which would support rotational crop farming, which means that many more countries and areas could begin to grow their own food than currently do.
With aeroponics, we’re not simply “making do” without soil, either. Because plants have such easy access to oxygen, they can grow very quickly, as opposed to having to get it through dense media. Plus, the delivery of nutrients to the roots is easier to control, as fertilizer and water won’t leach away into the surrounding soil, leaving you wondering how much actually made it to the roots.
There’s also the fact that soil harbors disease, fungus, and pests. Animals, microbes, and funguses need soil in order to take root and grow. Consequently, because plant roots needn’t contend with soil or other media, they are less likely to become infected. That in turn reduces the need for:
- Pesticides
- Fungicides
- Herbicides
- Miticides
… and so on. As each of these poses a challenge to the planet’s waterways and wildlife, the less we can use, the better. Relinquishing our reliance on soil is good for another reason as well.
Winning With Vertical
We are, quite simply, running out of room. As Allied Market Research again points out, “the global population is expected to increase from about 6.9 billion in 2010 to 9.2 billion in 2050. Presently, the growth rate of global population is nearly 80 million per annum, which is a major concern, as the habitable area of the Earth is limited to nearly 13 billion hectares.”
As of 2021, we hit 7.88 billion, so we’re right on track to hit those staggering population numbers in 2050. It hardly needs to be said, though, that the Earth isn’t getting any bigger. Until we can reach the stars, we’re working with what we’ve got.
“Therefore,” says the above source, “people have shifted from traditional agricultural techniques to sustainable ways to cater to the increasing demand-supply gap. This is a major factor that drives the adoption of aeroponics farming across the globe as a sustainable, profitable, and ecologically healthy option of traditional farming.”
How can we make our ag practices more sustainable, ecological, and profitable? With vertical farming, which enables growers to easily increase the amount of food they can produce on a single piece of land.
We’ve discussed this on the blog as well, pointing out that motivated growers can find vertical space in many types of structures, including:
- High rises
- Studio apartments
- Desktop herb gardens
- Commercial greenhouses
Office building foyers, small greenhouses, and outbuildings all make excellent options as well.
Lengthening the Seasons
Because aeroponics takes place in a controlled environment, you also don’t have to rely on the vicissitudes of seasonal weather the way you do with normal crop rotation. This is important, says NASA, offering tomatoes as an excellent illustration.
“Tomato growers traditionally start their plants in pots, waiting at least 28 days before transplanting them into the ground,” says the US agency. “Using an aeroponic system, growers can start the plants in the growing chamber, then transplant them just 10 days later. This advanced technology produces six tomato crop cycles per year, instead of the traditional one to two crop cycles.”
It’s not just tomatoes, though. For instance, aeroponics enables the growing of leafy greens such as lettuce and spinach year-round, greatly extending the growing season compared even to temperature parts of the world.
Why does this diminish our reliance on the traditional spring-summer-fall-winter cycle so much? For several reasons:
- We needn’t rely on seasonal rains to provide moisture. The Southwest, for example, can reuse the water it extracts from the Colorado River rather than choosing between growing seasonally or sucking it dry.
- Growers can use greenhouse technology to extend seasons: Greenhouses, which we’ve employed since the 17th century, are excellent at retaining the sun’s heat. Passive solar is not only an inexpensive means of extending the growing season, it’s an extremely effective one.
- We don’t have to wait for appropriate seasons to rotate crops. Traditionally, farmers plant crops for part of the year, then plant a cover crop for the rest. Or they will leave soil fallow for several years in a row to let it regenerate. None of this is necessary with aeroponics, since growers can simply add the right nutrients to the reservoir without fear of annihilating soil à la the Dust Bowl.
That in turn means we have more months in which to grow food, reducing our reliance on shorter periods of time to feed people year-round.
Heading Starside
If you think space is the place, you’re not alone. Organizations across the planet also think space is the place – specifically, Mars, Luna, and even some of the gas giant moons. That’s in addition to the space stations and habitats that forward thinkers have envisioned for decades.
If we ever want to get to Mars – an 8-month trip under good conditions – then we’ll need to bring plenty of food with us. Or the means for growing it, considering some deep space missions simply won’t allow for the heavy payloads that food represents. (Think of a trip to Jupiter’s moon Enceladus, sometimes proposed as fit for human habitation, which would take researchers or colonists 11 years to reach.)
However, agriculture comes with its own heavy payloads. Water and soil represent significant weight, for example, and in a closed environment like a spaceship, there’s no room for waste. What can we do about that? Why, eliminate the soil and much of the water, of course. Aeroponics does just that.
As NASA explains, “Aeroponics systems can reduce water usage by 98 percent, fertilizer usage by 60 percent, and pesticide usage by 100 percent, all while maximizing crop yields. Plants grown in the aeroponic systems have also been shown to uptake more minerals and vitamins, making the plants healthier and potentially more nutritious.”
At the same time, “Each ounce of food and water produced aboard a spacecraft reduces payload weight, allowing space for other cargo that can't be produced onboard.”
Prioritizing Nutrition
Research shows that plants grown aeroponically are more than as good as traditionally grown plants on Earth. They may be considerably better.
According to the above source, NASA conducted an in-depth aeroponics study at the end of the last century. They compared adzuki bean crops grown aboard the Russian space station Mir with those grown on the ground, treating them with an “all-natural, organically-derived, disease control liquid known as Organic Disease Control, or Organically Derived Colloidals (ODC).”
Their results were startling: “While all of the seeds did well, those aboard Mir grew more than those on Earth. Both sets of plants treated with the ODC method grew more robustly and exhibited less fungal infection than the untreated seeds and seedlings.”
There’s a good reason for this. Plants grown in soil have to focus a lot of their energy on growing roots to reach the water and nutrients they need. In aeroponics systems, however, nutrients and water come right to them. They can leave their roots as-is, instead focusing their energy on producing leafier greens, sweeter fruit, and more nutritious beans.
In other words, aeroponics looks like a lot more than simply using land better and extending the seasons. If we can truly dial in this growing process, we will be able to feed more people better food, sustainably and ecologically, far into the future.
First, though, we need to put the systems together correctly. That requires an understanding of the individual components involved.
