Soilless Farming in Fashion in Tokyo
Farming requires a farmer, soil, seeds, fertilizers, water, sunlight, and so on. Farming is for countryside not a town of bricks and concrete. So it has been thought so far, but not anymore, folks. Not anymore.
Come to visit the Ginza, the heart of Tokyo. In a stationery store of long standing, on its 11th floor, is a vegetable factory. Right now 2000 pots of lettuce are growing here. A floor above is a cafe where this lettuce is served as part of the best-selling salad.
Green factories like this one are found here and there in Tokyo over the past six years or so. The key is the light, they say. By controlling the light all kinds of vegetables are cultured.
In Yokohama, too, in the middle of the office area is a store where they sell organic greens harvested early morning. Particularly popular is LED cultured lettuce. A private research lab has measured 1.5 times more beta-carotene in the LED-cultured lettuce. It's 50 % dearer in price but popular among health-conscious women. A female customer says to NHK she come to shop here once a week at least. " I count on this store for our vegetable supply", she adds.
The factory that produces this lettuce is housed in a building, 73 square meters of floor space raise leafy vegetables and herbs - altogether 20 different kinds, the factory manager Kenji Ishida explains to NHK.
Pointing to a strange purple light, he says, "This purple-color LED light might look like a single color but it's finely adjusted to appropriate colors." Each color has its character and red light stipulates photosynthesis and growth; blue light works on plants to deliver nutrients.
The magic of light has also stipulated Prof. Eiji Goto of Chiba University to research for nearly 30 on how to extend the concept of a vegetable factory into the world of preventive medicine. By adding ultraviolet ray to LED he found lettuce turning reddish.
In the red part of lettuce is contained twice as much polyphenol known for its cancer suppressing action as ordinary lettuce, according to Prof. Goto.
A soilless farming is no fake, folks.
News Source: NHK