Reykjavík Grapevine - okt. 2021, Blaðsíða 23

23The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10— 2021
The Farm Of The
Future
VAXA introduces a new way of farming
What do you see when envisioning a
farm? A rustic house in the country-
side, surrounded by tilled fields with
healthy crops wavering in a light
breeze? While this romantic image
might be preserved in the minds of
many, the future of agriculture looks
a lot different.
Vertical farming is a new, efficient
way of growing crops. It uses soilless
farming techniques and aims to opti-
mize plant growth by controlling all the
aspects of the process. The gist of verti-
cal farming is that it enables farmers
to grow more produce in smaller areas
than regular farms, since the crops are
grown in stacked layers rather than on
expansive fields. It is a step towards
a more sustainable future—and one
that’s been taken VAXA.
Sci-fi setting in an
industrial area
Located within a 10-minute drive from
central Reykjavík, VAXA farm holds
court in a grey industrial building next
to Bauhaus. Looking at the building,
it’s hard to imagine it houses one of
Europe’s largest vertical farms. Noth-
ing suggests that this place is home to
an ample amount of greens.
When stepping inside the building,
you can’t help thinking that the place
must be a backdrop for a sci-fi movie. It
feels like you’ve entered a space station
orbiting the Earth.
Upon entering the growing room,
visitors are equipped with lab coats and
shoe covers. Hands are required to be
sanitized before going into the area,
and many doors need to be opened be-
fore reaching the destination.
That’s when that ingrained image of
a farm goes through a complete meta-
morphosis: farming at VAXA is on a
whole new level–quite literally. Grow-
ing the produce takes place indoors,
without even the slightest sight of sun-
light. The plants are grown on multiple
floors, stacked one on top of the other
Each floor is divided into two levels:
the upper one carries the greens and
the lower is filled with water, which the
plants then absorb. Sunlight is replaced
with countless LED lights, while heat
and humidity are adjusted with air con-
ditioning, and dozens of fans mimic
the wind. The process is meticulously
controlled to create ideal conditions for
the greens to grow.
The result is shelves overflowing
with healthy heads of lettuce, baby
leaves, herbs, and micro greens, all
packed with flavour. VAXA produces
only greens at the moment, though they
have experimented with growing kohl-
rabi and parsnips as well. Each month,
the farm cultivates a hefty amount of
greens, which are sold to Icelandic res-
taurants, grocery stores, and individual
customers who have signed up for a
weekly farm box delivery.
Solutions For The Future
Walking between the f lourishing
shelves, Íris Ósk Val!órsdóttir, the
Chief Operating Officer of VAXA, de-
scribes the benefits of vertical farm-
ing. As the world’s population grows
rapidly, field spaces will only decrease.
Vertical farming makes it possible to
grow considerable amounts of produce
in smaller spaces. “This place is 600
square meters, but we’re actually grow-
ing on 1500 square meters, because we
aren’t growing the plants on one level.
It’s a no-brainer for areas that have lim-
ited amounts of land to utilize vertical
farming,” she says, looking up at the
high shelves filled with greens.
In addition to its space efficien-
cy, this new way of farming is much
friendlier to the environment than
greenhouses and fields that are out in
the open. The water that’s used to grow
the plants in VAXA farm is reused by
pumping it out to a container, clean-
ing it and then pumping it back inside
the plant shelves. “That means we can
grow a kilo of salad using only a liter of
water,” Íris explains. In a traditional
greenhouse, the amount of water re-
quiredwould be at least 15 times higher,
not to mention the fields outside, where
growing one kilo of greens requires an
astonishing 250 liters of water. “A lot
of the water goes to waste in the fields,
when it’s absorbed by the soil,” she ex-
plains.
So why isn’t vertical farming more
popular if it checks all the boxes from
efficiency to eco friendliness? Íris
thinks that one of the reasons might
be that the method is quite far ahead
of its time. “It’s been a bit of a struggle
to fit into the system,” she recounts.
Because VAXA isn’t a conventional
greenhouse, securing government
grants and down payments has been a
challenge. “We can’t even get certified
as organic, because we don’t do things
by their standards, although it doesn’t
get more organic than this,” she adds.
Visionaries Of Farming
Because VAXA believes in what they are
doing, they continue their work—even
if society is lagging behind. “We want
to be cutting edge,” Íris remarks. She
implies that VAXA has bigger plans
as well: “This here is supposed to be a
proven concept, just so we know that it
works, in case we want to do it some-
where else.”
Though modest about it, VAXA is
certainly bringing us closer to the fu-
ture. “People think we work with sci-fi
products, but at the end of the day, we’re
just growing salad,” Íris laughs.
Íris Ósk Val!órsdóttir
“We want to be
cutting edge.”
Words:
Reetta Huhta

Photo:
Art Bicnick
Culture