An entrepreneur from Rovno, Stanislav Dubrovsky, put forward the idea of creating vertical eco-farms on abandoned facilities for the purpose of growing vegetable and berry crops.
According to Stanislav Dubrovsky, the idea itself arose after watching a science film about the newest methods of growing vegetable crops.
For some time the entrepreneur collected ideas from various sources and this led to the idea of developing his own software and hardware solutions, such as the creation of controlled artificial lighting, which allows you to monitor the growth rate of plants.
In vertical eco-farms, vegetable crops will be grow on the principle of hydroponics that is, using mineral nutrient solutions. Thus, plants will receive the right amount of moisture and nutrients that will penetrate into the roots within the controlled process. The technology developed by Dubrovsky allows grow more than fifty vegetables on a much smaller area, and in much shorter periods. It is interesting that at the same time the volume of harvest is much higher than the amount of harvest on traditional farms.
The peculiarity of this eco-farm is that vegetables instead of sunlight will receive light from LEDs and thus it is possible fully control the growth of plants. With a properly calculated level of illumination, plants grow quite rapidly, and due to isolation from the environment, vegetables do not need to be treat with harmful substances, which makes it possible to obtain an environmentally friendly product. It is interesting that due to vertical eco-farms, it is possible to significantly reduce the import of products from other countries to our country and provide the market with own vegetables, of high quality, and grow quality vegetables for imports. Currently, Stanislav Dubrovsky already has enough work and information to start the implementation of the project.
The entrepreneur noted that now it is plan to appeal to the administration of the city of Rivne with a request to allocate the necessary premises for creating vertical closed eco-farms. It is interesting that for the creation of eco-farms suitable premises that do not attract interest from outside investors due to their non-efficiency.
In addition, the “bonus” from the use of eco-farm will be the heat from the lighting system and the oxygen that will produce the plants. Of course, these factors will positively influence the environment. Thus, not only the products will be environmentally friendly, but also the process of obtaining it – we can say that we managed to combine almost incompatible factors and develop the idea of an ecological production of food products.
In addition, the farm does not require additional heating, since LED lamps emit a sufficient amount of heat for a comfortable growth of vegetable crops. The lighting costs account for 85% of the technological costs that the project requires.
Thus, the cost of vegetables will be sufficiently co-efficient in comparison with vegetables grown on standard farms.
Moreover, the more automation of production – the less the price for vegetables will be. For example, the cost price of lettuce is about two hryvnia, or even lower. In addition, we should not forget that this would be an environmentally friendly product. Therefore, vegetables grown on eco-farms can become serious competitors to vegetables grown on standard farms. For a full return of investment, according to entrepreneur Stanislav Dubrovsky, it will take about four to five years to use a vertical eco-farm.
