A viewer asks: “What is Creator’s opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of hydroponic, aeroponic, and vertical farm systems that are touted as sustainably feeding the future world with less land, water, and pollution?”

We would say that when food cannot be grown naturally, this would be the next best thing. But when food can be obtained through natural agricultural approaches done traditionally, it is a far better source of nutrition all around than will ever come from an artificial environment used as a substitute. There are many reasons for this—first and foremost is the lack of connection to the earth, which will change the makeup of what is produced within the plant in the array of chemicals that are not considered as food, because what is measured by science is simply the caloric content and the makeup of the general categories of nutritional substances, whether carbohydrate, protein, or fat. This might extend in some cases to the vitamin content but little beyond that when there are literally thousands of unique chemical substances produced by plants, many of which can have a benefit in the human body when ingested. Some will be toxic but are handled adequately through metabolism to keep their adverse effects to a minimum, but many of the latter will be still produced when plants are grown through artificial technologies, so that is not a trade-off but an unavoidable component regardless of the origin in producing the plants for food. Natural light is far superior to the artificial light used for plant propagation in the artificial environments that are touted as "optimal" simply because the vagaries of weather can be avoided. So in a warehouse with LED lighting, there will never be a cloudy day but that does not mean that LED light is equally beneficial and productive in all respects concerning what the plants are producing chemically that adds nutritional value. Natural light introduces forms of electromagnetic energy that produce unique end products not contained in the narrow spectrum lighting of artificial lamps. So even though large and attractive plants can be grown artificially, that does not mean they will be equally nutritious pound for pound, so there might be advantages of convenience in having uniform appearance and presumed quality for the artificial environment compared to a natural growth—that will be misleading. So we see that it is a helpful stopgap when food availability cannot be obtained in a remote area with too harsh an environment, but it is far better to obtain nature grown foods through providing the needed transport to those areas of the world where only artificial means could be used to grow things locally, rather than accept the compromise of the technologies.