Hydroponic Farming- The Bed Rock of Future Urban Farming

• Sep 03
• Admin
• 8

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in its recent report has brought out that nearly 75 per cent of the world’s 9 billion population by 2050 shall be of urban dwellers. Therefore, provisioning fresh vegetables and fruits to this vast urban population will be a challenge, essentially because climate change, shrinking water resources and limitation of land among other factors will require that open field cultivation be supplemented or substituted with viable alternative food production systems such as hydroponic farming especially in the urban areas, essentially because, the benefits of hydroponics farming come mainly due to the possibility of growing fresh horticultural produce under control environment in urban dwellings where ground space is limited. In urban farming, one can go in for roof top hydroponics so that judicious use of sunlight and roof top space is made for the production of fresh vegetables and herbs. Further to this, vertical hydroponic production systems if set up on the roof top will utilize vertical space and maximum productivity per unit space. Moreover, as hydroponic systems optimize the use of water, fertilizers and other agrochemicals and result in horticultural produce that is free of hazardous chemicals and residues.

In view of future increase in demand for hydroponic farming especially in the urban areas, it would be expected that more and more people acquire knowledge and skill about hydroponic farming to become a skilled hydroponic grower. School of Hydroponics of the Institute of Horticulture Technology has sate of the art hydroponic systems for imparting hands on training to trainees those come to learn hydroponic farming of various scales from our experts. The School of Hydroponics run offline and online courses on hydroponic farming for the benefit of entrepreneurs, farmers, youth, students and other stake holders all the year round.