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Hydroponics vs. Field Farming: The Real Reasons Supermarkets May Switch · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and I'm the owner-founder of Utrema Limited,
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  a company that makes fertilisers, biostimulants and biopesticides for hydroponic
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  growers and conventional growers, people growing in soil as well.
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  And today, I just wanted to contrast a couple of different issues with growing
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  outdoors in soil compared to growing hydroponically indoors in a greenhouse
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  or in a grow room or a vertical farm the first one is that,
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  you might think in in europe
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  a lot of our food is imported especially a lot
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  of our fresh produce things like lettuce leafy greens and things like
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  this even in holland where we think of as having
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  a really big horticulture sector
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  still the vast majority is imported and
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  they actually export a lot of leafy greens out of
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  holland to other markets now what's stopping
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  more farmers growing outdoors and you
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  might think oh well there's that there's a limit on how much can be grown outdoors
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  and we're at that limit and that's why we're having vertical farms producing
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  leafy greens lettuce and things like that to fill the gap and try and reduce
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  the amounts of imports however that's not actually the case.
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  And I've got a number of customers who grow leafy greens and spinach and things
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  like that outdoors in fields.
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  And when I say to them, what stops more farmers doing what you're doing?
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  And the simple answer is, for want of a better word, laziness.
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  And they say that farmers, most arable farmers want an easy life,
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  and they don't want to employ lots of people.
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  They don't want to be on the farm during
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  the height of summer when they could be on holiday and
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  between harvest and crop maturation so
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  arable farming is low number of people and
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  low inputs low risk and so
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  it's an easy life and it's a bit like comparing you know sheep farming to dairy
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  farming dairy dairies require lots of man hours and lots of people and so horticulture
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  in field horticulture growing crops in fields like spring onions or you know anything celery,
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  is a lot of effort and a lot of people and it's a big business so that's actually what stops.
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  More homegrown inputs especially in europe don't
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  know what the case is in the us but it's not a case of
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  maxing out and there we need we need vertical farms whereas
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  large companies are investing in vertical farming and obviously they don't mind
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  investing in people and systems and things like this so i think there's a gap
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  in the market for more field-based horticulture in the uk for that perspective
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  the other thing i wanted to talk about when it comes to field production is,
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  They are thinking that field-based vegetables, especially lettuce,
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  but also things like Brussels sprouts, in future will actually,
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  you'll find a lot more insects on them when you buy them from the supermarket.
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  And they're thinking that consumers are going to have to get used to this and
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  educated on this, especially in Holland and Belgium, where a lot of this research has been done.
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  And they're finding that it's maybe eight
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  years ago aphids you know what you might call green
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  fly or what or black fly if you're not sure what an aphid was
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  very small greeny yellow insects that
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  suck the sap of your leaves they used
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  to be not a problem eight years ago and that's because
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  we had a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids and
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  they were put on the seeds and they protect the plants for life so with 50 grams
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  of insecticide you could protect a hectare of vegetables now they were banned
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  in europe because they are very poisonous to bees and so the the main farmers
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  that that that outcried about this in the uk were like.
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  Beet farmers and oilseed rape
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  farmers but actually it's horticulture and vegetables
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  where it's probably the biggest impact and so this
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  is going to be an area where hydroponic and
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  indoor crops will actually have a major advantage
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  on over field-grown crops
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  in the future and in the next few years and
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  as the european union wants to withdraw
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  not banned because they never actually ban withdraw more
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  active ingredients the situation will only
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  get worse unless we find other natural chemical free
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  ways to produce crops biocontrol starts to take
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  effect in fields at the moment biocontrol is
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  not as limited mainly to protected cultivation so that's
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  a big area where hydroponics has a big advantage because you
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  can exclude the pests completely and more
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  effectively use biocontrol and then
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  the other major advantage which i think i've talked about before is the
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  contamination by microbes and pesticides and other contaminants from the soil
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  since heavy metals hydroponics has an ability to have improvements there because
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  you're not driving tractors next to the the lettuce you're not having people taking the piss.
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  And doing other sorts of nasty things in the
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  field maybe you know obviously that's not the standard
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  operating procedure for that crop but you know
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  people are more likely to do that than they are in a hydroponics farm
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  for example and also you know you're not surrounded by
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  soil with its contaminant with its very high you
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  know soil has a very high microbial count whether
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  that's a good thing or a bad thing it's full of beneficial microbes and it's
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  full of pathogens to humans and pathogens to plants as well so and obviously
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  that's one of the reasons for why hydroponics has an advantage so as i say this
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  this increasing threat of aphids in europe could be things that swing their.
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  Maybe purchases supermarkets to to
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  look towards more hydroponically grown crops and
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  move away from field grown crops if if
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  they're consistently getting complaints and issues with with
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  insects in the crop you might be able to grow an amazing
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  crop and not be the yield might not be impacted by
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  say a caterpillar in the lettuce or an aphid
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  in the lettuce but the consumer won't care whether
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  your yields and the actual quality has been affected if they're
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  seeing loads of insects it might be that certain insects
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  are are tolerated like an aphid it's
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  it's inconsequential probably don't see it but if it was like a a black flea
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  beetle or something or a stink bug or something something that was really horrible
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  looking then they would definitely complain you know like a big red caterpillar
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  for example a lily beetle something like that in your in your crop then
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  there would definitely be complaints.
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  And so insect control and pest control is not just about controlling yields
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  and virus transfer and quality of crop.
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  It can also be customer perception, and it could be a big win for hydroponics going forwards.
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  Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. It's just an opinion piece.
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  We'll have a news piece or a product focus tomorrow. if you found it useful
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  then please do give an apple podcast review or if you're not on apple podcasts
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  check out the utreema website and if you can't spell utreema it's latin for
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  wasabi which is one of my favorite plants hence i named my company after it
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  thank you very much for listening until tomorrow goodbye.