Siam Spencer 07:32, March 06, 2022
This Sunday marks the last day of the Agricultural Show.
The opportunity to taste local products and support a sector in crisis.
It is in particular for this reason that a start-up is currently developing a vertical farm, an alternative to traditional agriculture.
REPORT
A start-up is currently developing a vertical farm, which aims to be an alternative to traditional farming methods.
Europe 1 went to visit this atypical farm less than 100 kilometers from Paris.
Plants in huge towers 10 meters high
"We are in a 4,000 square meter hangar with twelve meters high ceilings. This whole area is the process area where we do sowing and harvesting", explains on Europe 1 Mickaël Mitterand, head of research and development at Jungle.
"The base is an automatic seed drill," he continues.
"Once the sowing is done, we go straight towards the germination chamber."
And, after the germination chamber, the plants are brought into towers, huge iron shelves ten meters high
"Each tray is about six square meters. For a footprint of about forty square meters, we have 300 square meters of crops", explains Mickaël Mitterand.
Here, the plants are immersed in a futuristic atmosphere.
LEDs come to replace the contributions of the sun.
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Seasonality control
"We are the ones who create the seasons, so there is no seasonality in production. We can produce varieties all year round", underlines the research and development manager of the start-up.
Each variety has its own program and nothing is left to chance: "During each round, we have a climatic environment that we control. We have an automaton. We control the temperature and the humidity".
In this vertical farm, no pesticides since the insects do not reach the plants.
The water is recycled and the production is sold within 100 kilometers to limit the environmental impact of transport.