Vertical Farming on Aruba: opportunities for Small Island States

Vertical Farming is a rising trend being implemented mainly in urban areas to boost local and sustainable food production. Small Island States, such as Aruba, are lacking land for massive agricultural development, so grow vertically and indoors is a great opportunity to become more self-sufficient, and partly independent on agri-crop import. In this project, which is a collaboration between the University of Aruba and the University of Leuven, we will investigate the possibilities of indoor vertical farming on the small island of Aruba. We will optimize the ideal conditions with respect to climate and light quantity and quality to grow plants in a controlled indoor farm. We will grow favorable specialty crops (such as strawberries) with a short storage life, to reduce the dependency of import. We also have the ambition translate knowledge on plant physiology and photobiology, to agricultural and innovative vertical farming applications for real-life situation. Eventually we have the ambition to provide locally produced fruits and vegetables making Aruba's food production economy more sustainable.