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Wealth of Geeks
It's projected that humans must increase worldwide food production by roughly 70% by 2050 to meet the caloric needs of 10 billion people. Through traditional agricultural practices, this would require people to convert 593 hectares of land for new food production, about double the size of India.
Traditional agriculture's resource expenditure is astronomical when accounting for land, water, fertilizer, and pesticides. Currently, 38% of the earth's non-frozen land is used for growing food.
Worldwide, 70% of freshwater goes towards agricultural production, mainly due to the disparity in resources needed to grow food for animals and unsustainable irrigation practices.
Efficiency is critical to feeding a growing planet. Hydroponic farming, where plants obtain nutrients directly from water-based solutions, may be part of the solution to our planet's unfolding agricultural crisis.
Conventional farming is limited by land, soil health, suitable terrain, seasonality, and weather conditions. Conversely, indoor farming allows for year-round crop production with fewer natural resource requirements.
Hydroponics can grow anywhere -- literally, anywhere. It's weather and climate-proof farming, meaning that floods, droughts, and other natural disasters can't wipe out an entire season of crops. In 2019, desert locusts ruined the food supply of 25 million people, demolishing a year's worth of work. Moving farms indoors almost eliminates crop vulnerability to bugs and weather.