China: Growing vegetables without soil

China is one of the few countries in the world that has built large-scale vegetable factories. These vertical vegetable factories are scattered across the country, under the management of research institutes and agricultural companies.

China develops factory that grows vegetables without soil. Illustration photo: Bozong.

A miniature version of the vegetable factory attracted much attention at an exhibition on China’s major technical achievements over the past five years held in Beijing earlier this month, according to Xinhua. Inside the 12-square-meter greenhouse, a variety of vegetables are grown neatly on shelves containing water and nutrient solutions under red and blue LED lights.

Huang Qingman, a vegetable factory technician on the project run by the Fujian Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences in eastern China, said the method allows vegetables to be grown in any location. "We feed the vegetable crop with a solution containing 16 different nutrients, just like babies drink milk powder," Huang said.

According to Huang, the temperature, humidity, light, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, along with water and nutrients in the factory are carefully controlled. Compared with traditional farming, vegetable factories are more efficient in terms of space and labor, leading to increased productivity and reduced risks associated with water, land and pesticides.

At Huang’s factory, two workers can manage a 3,345-square-meter greenhouse. A crop of factory-produced vegetables is ready for harvest in 15 days. A 650-square-meter greenhouse can produce up to 60 tons of vegetables a year, compared with 11 tons a year at a vegetable farm of the same size.

Yan Wenkai, a technician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the institute is planning to build vertical vegetable factories for the military in areas where farming is difficult, such as Xinjiang and Tibet. "We hope such factories will allow us to make use of abandoned factories and underground spaces, as well as barren land and deserts. In the future, they may even exist on the moon or other planets," Xinhua quoted Wenkai as saying.

According to VNE