Vertical Farming as a route to crop nutritional enhancement

The problems around food nutrition and health are manifold. Climate change is increasingly impacting UK food production the food we import in terms of yield, quality, and nutritional content variability, all of which mean reduced food security and increased costs. Allied to this is a changing demographic with the estimate that by 2035 the majority of the population will be aged 40 or older. This shift to a higher age demographic comes with a need to maintain protein and balanced micronutrient levels to guard against loss of muscle mass and strength, frailty and associated comorbidities in later life. In the last 10 years we have seen a reduction in red-meat and processed meat consumption of 13.7 and 7.0g/capita/day, respectively, with a modest uplift in white meat consumption. This, and the shift to a more varied and plant-inclusive diet, means greater effort needs to go into both providing access to a wider range of plant/crop-based foods and ensuring that these foods have good, or ideally enhanced, nutritional compositions. However, we have seen how fragile the UK food supply change is with the recent tomato/pepper/cucumber scarcity. This adds further problems to the UK's existing £6Bn annual fruit and vegetable deficit (DEFRA, 2021).

Building on previous vertical farming projects wherein we identified preliminary data identifying an ability to enhance the levels of protein and micronutrients in crops, here we will further expand and develop that concept. Within a consortium of plant/crop science, human nutrition, industrial growers and leading food retailers, we will exploit these identified benefits-to-date of vertically-farmed crops to produce crops at a higher level of productivity and with defined nutritional enhancements, and using significantly less water and nutrient inputs. Here we will target the crops microgreen kale and pak choi, as established crops and explore the benefits of emergent ones, quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat, all of which have well defined and beneficial nutritional components. Allied to this a technoeconomic assessment of vertically farmed produce against conventional production systems will be undertaken to establish economic feasibility. However, these nutritionally enhanced crops have been identified by the retail partners as having significant economic potential as fresh produce and/or in processed foods.