Growing Cubes – Urban Barns Foods

The Evolution of Urban Farming

By Evan Meikleham

Excerpts:

Cubic agriculture is defined as the use of a modular growing apparatus that can be stacked vertically or horizontally. Each module is identical, meaning that plants can be grown in any climate-controlled building, regardless of shape, floor plan, or ceiling height. Cubic agriculture has been developed with the increased focus on urban farming initiatives to supply food in large cities. Governments are worried about sustainability of the food supply, as current farming methods are resource-intensive. Cubic agriculture has been raised as an additional solution to issues of sustainability and food safety, food security and traceability.

Cubic Farming

In recent years, a handful of innovators have shifted their focus towards adapting buildings, as opposed to designing the “perfect” facility. In 2009, Jacob Benne and Dan Meikleham developed a “Growing Cube”, a 10 x 10 box shaped apparatus that is mechanized to increase output by moving the plants under a light source at the same time utilizes second generation line production principles to reduce labor inputs.

By using a modular system, rows of Growing Cubes can be stacked on top of each other like building blocks. Thus, any climate-controlled building can be filled with automated growing machines effectively creating a total cubic growing environment.

As the modular machines have already been proven effective and efficient, urban agriculture research has evolved from creating an environment to adapting an environment. The cubic farming concept is unique in that it makes use of a building’s entire cubic volume, instead of its footprint – a warehouse with 40-foot ceilings and 1,000 square feet of floor space is (in theory) as good as a building with 20-foot ceilings and 2,000 square feet of floor space. The technology will not be limited by the inability to find a building with an appropriate floor plan as in vertical farming.

When combined with standard indoor climate control, the Growing Cube can produce yields of 88 times that of conventional industrial farming per square foot of area with a 32 foot high ceiling. The per-acre yield of cubic farming increases as each layer of cubes is stacked on top of the last layer. The inventors developed a propriety system for the Growing Cube and filed with the United States Patent Office on 8 May 2011.

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