Vertical Farming
"What is proposed here that differs radically from what now exists is to scale up the concept of indoor farming, in which a wide variety of produce is harvested in quantity enough to sustain even the largest of cities without significantly relying on resources beyond the city limits. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and other large farm animals seem to fall well outside the paradigm of urban farming. However, raising a wide variety of fowl and pigs are well within the capabilities of indoor farming. It has been estimated that it will require approximately 300 square feet of intensively farmed indoor space to produce enough food to support a single individual living in an extraterrestrial environment (e.g., on a space station or a colony on the moon or Mars)(35). Working within the framework of these calculations, one vertical farm with an architectural footprint of one square city block and rising up to 30 stories (approximately 3 million square feet) could provide enough nutrition (2,000 calories/day/person) to comfortably accommodate the needs of 10,000 people employing technologies currently available. Constructing the ideal vertical farm with a far greater yield per square foot will require additional research in many areas – hydrobiology, engineering, industrial microbiology, plant and animal genetics, architecture and design, public health, waste management, physics, and urban planning, to name but a few. The vertical farm is a theoretical construct whose time has arrived, for to fail to produce them in quantity for the world at-large in the near future will surely exacerbate the race for the limited amount of remaining natural resources of an already stressed out planet, creating an intolerable social climate."
Read more: VerticalFarm.com
"What is proposed here that differs radically from what now exists is to scale up the concept of indoor farming, in which a wide variety of produce is harvested in quantity enough to sustain even the largest of cities without significantly relying on resources beyond the city limits. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and other large farm animals seem to fall well outside the paradigm of urban farming. However, raising a wide variety of fowl and pigs are well within the capabilities of indoor farming. It has been estimated that it will require approximately 300 square feet of intensively farmed indoor space to produce enough food to support a single individual living in an extraterrestrial environment (e.g., on a space station or a colony on the moon or Mars)(35). Working within the framework of these calculations, one vertical farm with an architectural footprint of one square city block and rising up to 30 stories (approximately 3 million square feet) could provide enough nutrition (2,000 calories/day/person) to comfortably accommodate the needs of 10,000 people employing technologies currently available. Constructing the ideal vertical farm with a far greater yield per square foot will require additional research in many areas – hydrobiology, engineering, industrial microbiology, plant and animal genetics, architecture and design, public health, waste management, physics, and urban planning, to name but a few. The vertical farm is a theoretical construct whose time has arrived, for to fail to produce them in quantity for the world at-large in the near future will surely exacerbate the race for the limited amount of remaining natural resources of an already stressed out planet, creating an intolerable social climate."
Read more: VerticalFarm.com
posted by trawlerman at 7:27 PM
7 Comments:
Maybe Scott will pick up and move to New York City, perhaps pig farming in Manhatten?
It looks to me like a another monument to the stupidity of mankind.
Urban farming can have its uses, but high-rise agriculture will never replace the ground-floor variety. All agriculture (and I include the raising of livestock in this, since they have to eat plants) has to have a growth medium and an energy source, and the only viable, sustainable energy source is the sun. The most efficient way to utilize that solar energy is to grow plants in direct sunlight. Growing plants under artificial light will always be less efficient - i.e. a waste of energy. (Unless we get an orbital solar array or something - then electric light might be cheap enough to overcome the hit in efficiency. But then we have to ask, how much energy did it cost to build and launch that satellite, assuming it's even feasible?) In a properly functioning economy, it would also be more expensive, but since we're still getting high on cheap fossil-fuel energy, it might be price-competitive for a short time. But we haven't even factored in the costs (in both money and energy) of building these high-rise farms yet. If we're not using existing buildings, there's no way to make it work, and there's just not enough vacant office space to feed the world. In short, The Farmer is correct.
Spike,
I also think it's cool.
Pete,
Maybe that will be the day when I can afford to eat half a pound of bacon every morning for breakfast (the same day "they" release the scientific study that proves that fat is absolutely good for you).
Scott,
It's probably unfortunate that I just posted this quote without any commentary, pro or con, but I wish that you would have interacted with the idea instead of issuing a blanket dismissal.
Usman,
I agree with you at present. I do think that it's interesting to note that this plan is at least somewhat based on proposals for farming in space. What will a sustained agriculture look like on Mars, for instance? Will a complete "terraforming" be necessary, and, even if so, is not this idea at least a first step during a transition period. My biggest problem with this vertical farming idea is that it denigrates traditional (horizontal) farms in the process of making its case. I don't agree with many of the premises. Still, I think that if this were viable (especially using solar paneling), then it is a serious option to consider. Also, if you haven't noticed it, there is a report on energy requirements found on the Vertical Farm site.
To all:
It's probably mostly my SF background that attracts me to this proposal. Honestly, if we (meaning humanity) intend to travel and explore the galaxy, the universe, and beyond, then a system must be developed along these lines. There is simply no way that a land-based agricultural system can support decades of space flight, let alone colonization attempts. Can this model, if successful, then be workable on earth? I think so, but not in order to replace traditional farms.
I'm not sure where I stand and I'm certainly not sending money to any vertical farm project, but I thought that the idea was interesting and useful enough to share.
This was not the first I had heard about this plan. Wendell Berry wrote a critique of it in his book The Unsettling of America. I would recomend this book as a great intro to Berry.
Scott,
I'd like to read Berry's critique, especially if it is of this plan, which seems to have come out after Berry's book did. Of course I can't discount that he was criticizing some earlier form of this idea.
If I had to recommend a a book as a great intro to Berry, it would be The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982.
Have you read Berry's essay, "Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer?"
I enjoy the irony of this essay being available for free on the web.
I love Berry and I'm certainly not knocking him, I'm just trying to point out that you're only selectively following his thought, as do I. Just because Berry critiques "vertical farms" doesn't mean that there is no good way to have such a thing. Anyhow, you still haven't offered any critique, just told me that you've come across the idea before.
It doesn't matter too much to me, though, because, like I said above, I'm not wholeheartedly supporting this enterprise and I disagree with some of their premises.
-john.
Hey John
The main reason I didn't jump right into it, is becouse as things are right now I hardly have time to write for my own BLOG. I offered Berry's critique was becouse I agreed with it. The idea has been around for a while. Mr. Skoosh had some good points. Perhaps I'll tackle this in more detail when I get more time. I didn't mean to just give it a "blanket statement".
Scott Terry
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