The High Rise Urban Farms of the Future
class=”MsoNormal”>Moving Farms off land and into skyscrapers is
on the verge of becoming reality. The main hurdle isn’t technology;
it’s one of engineering and funding.
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class=”MsoNormal”>GLOBE-Net -
Imagine a full-scale farm right in the heart of New York City, in
the deserts of Darfur or on the moon. While you might have to
wait some time for your lunar lettuce, vertical farming
technologies are increasing the possibilities of cultivating crops
much more efficiently here on earth.
class=”MsoNormal”>Moving farms into buildings might change the way
much of humanity grows its food. And while vertical farming
is on the cusp of blooming, the main hurdle isn’t technology; it’s
one of engineering and funding.
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class=”MsoNormal”>”We know how to grow food inside,” says Dickson
Despommier of Columbia University. “That’s not the
problem. What we don’t know yet is how to integrate that
technology into a tall building. That appears to be a simple,
but perhaps expensive engineering problem.”
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class=”MsoNormal”>The
End of Farming As We Know It
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class=”MsoNormal”>Known as the founder of the modern vertical
farming concept, Despommier is a Public Health professor and
stresses the urgency of changing the way humanity cultivates its
food.
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class=”MsoNormal”>”We choose to live in cities,” he
says. “By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s
population will reside in urban centers. The human population
will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim.
If we don’t learn how to [vertical farm] soon, these will become
horrible places.”
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class=”MsoNormal”>According the UN, the amount of arable land per
person decreased from about an acre in 1970 to roughly half an acre
in 2000 and is projected to decline to about a third of an acre by
2050.
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class=”MsoNormal”>There will simply not be enough farmland to feed
us.
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class=”MsoNormal”>Offland farming also uses a fraction of the water
land farming does. This is why Despommier believes that
vertical farming will take root first in “water challenged” areas
of the world, like the Middle East.
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class=”MsoNormal”>Toil
without Soil
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class=”MsoNormal”>Moving farms off land and into urban buildings
offers a solution to land and water scarcity and a really
impressive swath of other natural, health, economic and political
challenges:
- Produces crops year-round; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6
outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g.,
strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres) - Avoids weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods,
pests - Grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or
fertilizers - Virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black
water - Returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and
services - Greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that
are acquired at the agricultural interface - Converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting
the water of evapotranspiration - Adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from
composting non-edible parts of plants and animals - Dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows,
shipping.) - Converts abandoned urban properties into food production
centers - Creates sustainable environments for urban centers
- Creates new employment opportunities
- We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first
learning to farm indoors on earth - May prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
- Offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for
tropical and subtropical Least Developing Countries (LDC). If
this should prove to be the case, then vertical farms may be a
catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth
of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for
sustainable food production. - Could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural
resources, such as water and land for agriculture
Designing
Towers of Sustenance
class=”MsoNormal”>The many potential benefits from vertical farming
have inspired a dazzling display of proposed projects that present
novel architectural, energy, farming and recycling solutions.
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Change
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class=”MsoNormal”>Vertical Farms are the fruit of a global
greenhouse movement decades in the making. Yet only as
recently as last year-with the collaborations of artists,
architects, city planners, farmers and politicians-did the concept
reach high-profile media attention by way of an Op-ed in the New
York Times.
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class=”MsoNormal”>The upsurge in vertical farm visibility might be
linked to its role in the climate change debate. Land use
(mainly forestry and agriculture) and its impact on the earth’s
natural carbon cycle has been given much attention by policymakers
looking to reduce carbon emissions.
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class=”MsoNormal”>”Every indoor acre you farm gives around 5-6
outdoor acres for the trees grow back and suck up more carbon,”
says professor Despommier. “That gives someone a chance to
catch up with the climate change issue. Vertical farming
allows the possibility to giving land back to what it was intended
for and that is producing hardwood forests.”
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Farms
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class=”MsoNormal”>Despommier estimates that if a city were to give
the nod, a viable vertical farm would spring up within a
year.
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class=”MsoNormal”>”That’s why a prototype would be a good place to
start, writes Despommier in the New York Times. “I estimate
that constructing a five-story farm, taking up one-eighth of a
square city block, would cost $20 million to $30 million.
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class=”MsoNormal”>Funding for the farm should be a blend of public
and private capital.
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class=”MsoNormal”>”Part of the financing should come from the city
government, as a vertical farm would go a long way toward achieving
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s goal of a green New York City by 2030. If
a farm is located where the public can easily visit it, the iconic
building could generate significant tourist dollars, on top of
revenue from the sales of its produce.”
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class=”MsoNormal”>Yet, the bulk of funding should come from private
venture-capital investors who see the potential profits of vertical
farms.
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class=”MsoNormal”>Despommier cites a Cornell University project of
hydroponic (soil-free, water-only) lettuce that produced each year
68 heads of lettuce per square foot. “At a retail price in
New York of up to $2.50 a head for hydroponic lettuce, you can
easily do the math and project profitability for other similar
crops.”
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class=”MsoNormal”>Despommier and the rest of the world-particularly
the urban and arid world-are waiting to see which city will be the
first to take off-land farming seriously. Apparently,
Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, has expressed interest
in bringing a vertical farm to the city.
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class=”MsoNormal”>In more ways than one, the sky is the limit.
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class=”MsoNormal”>target=”_blank”>Learn more about vertical farming here:
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target=”_blank”>Read Despommier’s 2008 NY Times Op-ed:
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target=”_blank”>Read Despommier’s 2009 NY Times Op-ed
Source: www.nytimes.com
