Revolutionizing Agriculture: Exploring the Potential of Hydroponics for Global Food Security

Abstract

Sustainable agricultural solutions are urgently needed as population growth, urbanization and climate change exerting huge pressure on the global food systems. Therefore, hydroponics can be an effective alternate for growing plants without the use of soil, as it has showed good results in terms of on season and off season crop yields by efficient resource utilization. This review discusses how hydroponics can contribute to food security, water scarcity and urbanization and also considering its historical development, technological advancement and comparative benefit against traditional agriculture. Hydroponics, as opposed to traditional agriculture, uses less land, no soil, prevents soil degradation and requires fewer pesticides or herbicides and thus it is suitable for both rural and urban areas. Nonetheless, obstacles like sizable upfront expenses, advanced technical requirements and energy use limit their potential. Hydroponic methods like Nutrient Film Technique (NFT), Deep Water Culture (DWC) and aeroponics utilize automation, Internet of Things (IoT) and LED lightings to provide the favourable growing conditions to plants and also save up to 90 per cent of water along with yield maximization. Present review highlights the hydroponics promise as a means to bolstering future food security as the crops can be grown year-round and is less dependent on environmental conditions compared to traditional agricultural crops. The challenges of advancements in renewable energy integration and scalable systems persist, and thus, holding promise for a sustainable food supply in the future. Therefore, hydroponics can be an effective technique under aqua-agricultural system in term of round the year crop production and less dependency in soil based resources. Sustainable agricultural solutions are urgently needed as population growth, urbanization and climate change exerting huge pressure on the global food systems. Therefore, hydroponics can be an effective alternate for growing plants without the use of soil, as it has showed good results in terms of on season and off season crop yields by efficient resource utilization. This review discusses how hydroponics can contribute to food security, water scarcity and urbanization and also considering its historical development, technological advancement and comparative benefit against traditional agriculture. Hydroponics, as opposed to traditional agriculture, uses less land, no soil, prevents soil degradation and requires fewer pesticides or herbicides and thus it is suitable for both rural and urban areas. Nonetheless, obstacles like sizable upfront expenses, advanced technical requirements and energy use limit their potential. Hydroponic methods like Nutrient Film Technique (NFT), Deep Water Culture (DWC) and aeroponics utilize automation, Internet of Things (IoT) and LED lightings to provide the favourable growing conditions to plants and also save up to 90 per cent of water along with yield maximization. Present review highlights the hydroponics promise as a means to bolstering future food security as the crops can be grown year-round and is less dependent on environmental conditions compared to traditional agricultural crops. The challenges of advancements in renewable energy integration and scalable systems persist, and thus, holding promise for a sustainable food supply in the future. Therefore, hydroponics can be an effective technique under aqua-agricultural system in term of round the year crop production and less dependency in soil based resources.