Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms

I can't imagine it could work for an old structure with little glass but it is an interesting use of urban land.


From Scientific American: Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms

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Key Concepts:

• Farming is ruining the environment, and not enough arable land remains to feed a projected 9.5 billion people by 2050.
• Growing food in glass high-rises could drastically reduce fossil-fuel emissions and recycle city wastewater that now pollutes waterways.
• A one-square-block farm 30 stories high could yield as much food as 2,400 outdoor acres, with less subsequent spoilage.
• Existing hydroponic greenhouses provide a basis for prototype vertical farms now being considered by urban planners in cities worldwide.

Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock—an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land—2.1 billion acres—if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist. To quote the great American humorist Mark Twain: “Buy land. They’re not making it any more.”...

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Global warming will increase arable earth supply easily. I keep saying that good will come from GW.

Sounds cool, does it make money?

Ray1936, Global Warming will actually create vast deserts where much of the world's food is currently grown, and the rapidly shifting population will create need for something like this.

Does Detroit hold any advantage over other competing cities in this potential field? Maybe because of low real estate costs?

The article doesn't explicitly mention Detroit but it seems to be an option worthy of Detroit's consideration.

One of the best ideas i've heard came from chicago, where someone converted an old building into a greenhouse with a trout farm. Water is channeled through channels to create running streams for the health of the trout, the water, with fish waste, is then used to irrigate the crops, which filter the water that is then returned to the stream. It is being used, I think, for food banks, so now the clients have fresh veggies and fresh fish

There is a similar project in Milwaukee with a fish farm and I think a few acres of greenhouse's in the city.

I'm curious to know how the arable land numbers would change if we stopped retooling farms to grow subdivisions.

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Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

I'm curious to know how the arable land numbers would change if we stopped retooling farms to grow subdivisions.

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Yeah, how ass-backwards is it to live on half-acre lots in the middle of nowhere and grow our food in skyscrapers downtown? Only in America.

Ha ha ha. Love your irony Bearinabox.

The huge flaw in the article above is that it assumes there will not be sufficient arable land to grow food in light of population growth - if farming is practiced as it is today. To assume that farming will be practiced in 2050 as it is in 2010 remains ridiculous. If we had measured whether 1910 farming techniques could provide sufficient food for the population in 1950, I would expect that there would be a similar finding. Given improvements in technology, I imagine farmers will be far more productive in 2050 than they are today, which will eliminate much of the problems regarding the amount of arable land required to grow food.

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Originally Posted by cman710

The huge flaw in the article above is that it assumes there will not be sufficient arable land to grow food in light of population growth - if farming is practiced as it is today. To assume that farming will be practiced in 2050 as it is in 2010 remains ridiculous. If we had measured whether 1910 farming techniques could provide sufficient food for the population in 1950, I would expect that there would be a similar finding. Given improvements in technology, I imagine farmers will be far more productive in 2050 than they are today, which will eliminate much of the problems regarding the amount of arable land required to grow food.

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Sweet! More factory farming and fake, processed food!