챌린지
일반 읽기

Q

1

0:00/1:34

Inside a bright greenhouse about an hour outside Dallas, workers in hairnets and gloves place plugs of lettuce and other greens into small plastic containers — hundreds of thousands of them — that stack up to the ceiling. A few weeks later, once the vegetables grow to full size, they’ll be picked, packaged and shipped out to local shelves within 48 hours.

번역 보기
hairnet
머리에 쓰는 망
stack up
계속 쌓이다

This is Eden Green Technology, one of the latest crop of indoor farming companies seeking their fortunes with green factories meant to pump out harvests of fresh produce all year long. The company operates two greenhouses and has broken ground on two more at its Cleburne campus, where the indoor facilities are meant to shelter their portion of the food supply from climate change while using less water and land.

번역 보기
break ground
공사를 시작하다, 착공하다
shelter
막아주다, 보호하다

2

0:00/1:34

But that's if the concept works. And players in the industry are betting big even as rivals wobble and fail. California-based Plenty Unlimited this summer broke ground on a $300 million facility, while Kroger announced that it will be expanding its availability of vertically farmed produce.

번역 보기
wobble
흔들리다, 흔들다

Meanwhile, two indoor farming companies that attracted strong startup money — New Jersey's AeroFarms and Kentucky's AppHarvest — filed for bankruptcy reorganization. And a five-year-old company in Detroit, Planted Detroit, shut its doors this summer, with the CEO citing financial problems just months after touting plans to open a second farm.

번역 보기
tout
장점을 내세우다, 홍보하다

3

0:00/1:34

Indoor farming brings growing inside in what experts sometimes call “controlled environment agriculture.” There are different methods; vertical farming involves stacking produce from floor to ceiling, often under artificial lights and with the plants growing in nutrient-enriched water. Other growers are trying industrial-scale greenhouses, indoor beds of soil in massive warehouses and special robots to mechanize parts of the farming process.

번역 보기
mechanize
기계화하다

Advocates say growing indoors uses less water and land and allows food to be grown closer to consumers, saving on transport. It's also a way to protect crops from increasingly extreme weather caused by climate change. The companies frequently tout their products as free of pesticides, though they’re not typically marketed as organic.

번역 보기
advocate
옹호자, 지지자
pesticide
살충제, 농약

4

0:00/1:34

But skeptics question the sustainability of operations that can require energy-intensive artificial light. And they say paying for that light can make profitability impossible.

번역 보기
energy-intensive
에너지 집약적인
profitability
수익성

Tom Kimmerer, a plant physiologist who taught at the University of Kentucky, has tracked indoor farming alongside his research into the growth of plants both outdoors and inside. He said his first thought on vertical farm startups — especially those heavily reliant on artificial light — was, “Boy, this is a dumb idea" — mainly due to high energy costs.

번역 보기
reliant
의존하는, 의지하는

5

0:00/1:34

He thinks investment flowing toward new versions of indoor farming would be better spent on practical solutions for outdoor farmers like weed-zapping robots, or even climate solutions like subsidizing farmers to adopt regenerative practices.

번역 보기
weed-zapping robot
잡초 없애는 로봇
subsidize
보조금을 주다

Moving farming indoors can solve some pest problems, but create new ones. Without their natural outdoor predators, tinier creatures like aphids, thrips and spider mites can become very difficult to control if not managed aggressively, said Hannah Burrack, an ecologist who specializes in pest management at Michigan State University.

번역 보기
aphid
진딧물
thrip
총채벌레
mite
진드기