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Other styles of farming whether square foot gardening or indoor hydroponics can be much more productive per acre than big field farming with tractors, but they are *labor* and *knowledge* intensive. Robotics (or other automation) make greater yields per square foot much more achievable more cheaply. That also makes vertical farming in cities more feasible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://www.motherearthnews.com...
http://www.verticalfarm.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

See especially:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
"A 2010 study published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems showed that biointensive methods resulted in significantly increased production and a reduction of energy use when compared with conventional agriculture (Moore, S.R., 2010, Energy efficiency in smallâscale biointensive organic onion production in Pennsylvania, USA, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 25:3, pp. 181â188). This study states that "Current mechanized agriculture has an energy efficiency ratio of 0.9 ... energy efficiency for biointensive production of onions in our study was over 50 times higher than this value (51.5), and 83% of the total energy required is renewable energy."

The fact that many people have inefficient backyard gardens does not mean that people could not have very productive gardens if they knew more and had more time for them. Biosphere II was a good example of intensive food production in a small space.

See also books on "Survival Gardening".
http://theprepperproject.com/s...

The best one I've seen (by that name, by John Freeman) is not mentioned there though:
http://www.amazon.com/Survival...

Don't know about this new one by someone else:
http://www.amazon.com/Survival...

Granted, that is mostly about organic vegetables and beans. Grains may be a somewhat different issue, but they are already heavily automated in many ways. But as Dr. Fuhrman suggests, eating more fruits and vegetables is healthier than eating more grains (especially refined grains).

You should not discount that gardening in the sunshine can be good health-promoting exercise. It saves money indirectly by displacing other less healthy recreational activities like shopping for the next unneeded consumer item.

BTW, we can grind up rock to get good fertilizer for relatively cheap, especially if powered by excess renewable energy:
http://remineralize.org/

By this estimate by economist Julian Simon, there is plenty of opportunities for growing lots more food if we want to:
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...

General purpose agricultural robotics makes intensive gardening so much more feasible to do on a small local scale... Still, highly-automated indoor agriculture powered by cheap energy is probably more the future of food production because it is so much more predictable.

Hydroponics
(Apogee) Dwarf Wheat
Thanet Earth (Guardian)
Thanet Earth (Daily Mail)
Eurofresh: in inhospitable Wilcox, AZ
Eurofresh: Air-Conditioning Greenhouses
Vertical Farm Project

Artifical light growth rates in a controlled environment (Omega Garden; also a good example of what growing indoors looks like--it's not hard to imagine a blocky wharehouse filled with these, unlikely the fanciful design in the article):

CFL (6 Kilowatts per Hour (KWH))
2 week total: 1646.4 KWH to produce 2160 units of Lettuce
Per Lettuce Unit = 0.76 KWH

LED (0.48 Kilowatt)
2 week total: 171 KWH to produce 2160 units of Lettuce
Per Lettuce Unit = 0.079 KWH

Vertical farms use lights that emit little green light, so the plants absorb the most energy with the least amount of external energy spent. I've not yet seen a design that merely utilizes solar energy: this is a picture of a proposed design at night:
http://www.verticalfarm.com/images/design/chris/thum/chris_jacobs_night.jpg

They commonly refer to methane recycling to make up for the need to draw from the power grid though.

go vertical like this http://www.verticalfarm.com/

As with other solar collectors, they may also be able to go vertical like this:
http://www.verticalfarm.com/

Do you work in the Agricultural district of downtown?

- RG>

I can fix that!

--

10,000 years of incredible human engineering isn't going to end with something as simple as "we've developed all the farmland".

Well they have taken the energy balance into consideration. And this does include artificial lighting. Surprisingly, they even expect more energy produced than consumed within the facility itself. The key to this is that they plan to recycle plant waste into energy.

I have not checked any of the calculations at all, but it's obvious that for this to work out even theoretically, the energy coming in via sunlight will need to be much more than the additional lighting required. For that precise reason, I'm rather sceptical, whether the calculations are sound at all. But at the very least, yes, they have thought about lighting requirements in some form.

Although some people did RTFA most clearly just looked at the pics and didn't go any further. If you actually read the site they have of course thought about this: http://www.verticalfarm.com/plans-2k5.htm

I am both a farmer and an architect (I was raised on a farm and worked as a farmer for 10 years, then went to college to study architecture) This designer is an idiot. Yes, you could technically make a giant vertical greenhouse, but why would you WANT to?

Firstly, you offer no real reason as to why you think this 'designer' is an idiot other than stating you have been a farmer and an architect.

Secondly, the project website http://www.verticalfarm.com/ identifies a number of reasons why it may be desirable to develop 'vertical farms' most notably a lack of available space for anticipated increases in food production capacity. There are others given, you just need to read through the site.

1). The vast majority of the labor would have to be done by hand. There is no way in HELL you are getting a 200hp tractor up there, period. The other option is to have equipment built into the building that can be used, but that gets unbelievably expensive, fast. 1920's all over again? No thanks.

I do not follow your reasoning here. Can you clarify why you think that the vast majority of the labour would have to be performed by hand? You mention of tractors demonstrates that you have not even read the index page of the site, had you done so, you would have noticed the following VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)

I do not believe that static equipment (for ploughing, watering, etc.) would be prohibitively expensive; a moving gantry for ploughing and irrigation purposes would be relatively simple to implement; I won't go into engineering details, but we are talking simple in terms of electric motors, chain or cable drives with some minor hydraulics.

Machinery with these basic mechanisms have been designed and used for at least the last 100 years so I highly doubt that any significant new design or operating challenges would have to be addressed. In my view, it ought to be possible to build such machinery at low cost. Obviously, there are also installation costs to consider, but we must not forget that these would be amortised over the equipment's lifetime.

2). Plants simply don't do as well in green houses as they do in nature. Yeah, you can get close with careful application of various fertilizers and chemicals, but then it isn't organic anymore!

Can you give us a little more information as to why this is the case? I would also (again) question if you have actually read the site in any detail. If you read the (pdf warning) report here http://www.verticalfarm.com/pdf/report2006/Commerc ially%20Crops.pdf (apologies for my inexperience in submitting slashdot posts - I don't fully understand the linking system), then you will note that paragraph 2, page 36 mentions an already existing underground vertical farm in Japan which you can also read about here http://www.cityfarmer.org/basementTokyo.html

Whilst this is not a commercial venture, it does illustrate the feasibility of the vertical farm concept.

3). Architecturally this would be a nightmare. Water everywhere + low ventilation to conserve heat in the greenhouse = HUGE mold and building decay problems. Greenhouses work because they don't have anything for water to seep into, they are basically steel and glass. That wouldn't work for a VERTICAL greenhouse though, you would need concrete, vapor barriers, water flashing... Again. We are talking about a LOT of money. I think my family will stick with our little patch of former swampland.

Seriously, you are claiming to be an architect; whilst I know your role is to make things look pretty, please at least demonstrate a basic grasp of the construction te

I am both a farmer and an architect (I was raised on a farm and worked as a farmer for 10 years, then went to college to study architecture) This designer is an idiot. Yes, you could technically make a giant vertical greenhouse, but why would you WANT to?

Firstly, you offer no real reason as to why you think this 'designer' is an idiot other than stating you have been a farmer and an architect.

Secondly, the project website http://www.verticalfarm.com/ identifies a number of reasons why it may be desirable to develop 'vertical farms' most notably a lack of available space for anticipated increases in food production capacity. There are others given, you just need to read through the site.

1). The vast majority of the labor would have to be done by hand. There is no way in HELL you are getting a 200hp tractor up there, period. The other option is to have equipment built into the building that can be used, but that gets unbelievably expensive, fast. 1920's all over again? No thanks.

I do not follow your reasoning here. Can you clarify why you think that the vast majority of the labour would have to be performed by hand? You mention of tractors demonstrates that you have not even read the index page of the site, had you done so, you would have noticed the following VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)

I do not believe that static equipment (for ploughing, watering, etc.) would be prohibitively expensive; a moving gantry for ploughing and irrigation purposes would be relatively simple to implement; I won't go into engineering details, but we are talking simple in terms of electric motors, chain or cable drives with some minor hydraulics.

Machinery with these basic mechanisms have been designed and used for at least the last 100 years so I highly doubt that any significant new design or operating challenges would have to be addressed. In my view, it ought to be possible to build such machinery at low cost. Obviously, there are also installation costs to consider, but we must not forget that these would be amortised over the equipment's lifetime.

2). Plants simply don't do as well in green houses as they do in nature. Yeah, you can get close with careful application of various fertilizers and chemicals, but then it isn't organic anymore!

Can you give us a little more information as to why this is the case? I would also (again) question if you have actually read the site in any detail. If you read the (pdf warning) report here http://www.verticalfarm.com/pdf/report2006/Commerc ially%20Crops.pdf (apologies for my inexperience in submitting slashdot posts - I don't fully understand the linking system), then you will note that paragraph 2, page 36 mentions an already existing underground vertical farm in Japan which you can also read about here http://www.cityfarmer.org/basementTokyo.html

Whilst this is not a commercial venture, it does illustrate the feasibility of the vertical farm concept.

3). Architecturally this would be a nightmare. Water everywhere + low ventilation to conserve heat in the greenhouse = HUGE mold and building decay problems. Greenhouses work because they don't have anything for water to seep into, they are basically steel and glass. That wouldn't work for a VERTICAL greenhouse though, you would need concrete, vapor barriers, water flashing... Again. We are talking about a LOT of money. I think my family will stick with our little patch of former swampland.

Seriously, you are claiming to be an architect; whilst I know your role is to make things look pretty, please at least demonstrate a basic grasp of the construction te

They haven't really explored the vertical context at all, either in arrangement or delivery systems etc, and also very tied to fixed ideas of what exactly a farm is....

They also "hope" it will generate enough heat to keep itself warm during the winter (what about summer cooling?). Did anyone notice an estimate of how many workers this 20-50 story building will need and how many cafeterias and toilets?

Actually I found some even better information on their site: http://www.verticalfarm.com/plans-2k5.htm I read the whole thing, it's a really fascinating study about the requirements of building a vertical farm capable of feeding 50k people while remaining off the grid.

A pdf on the site, besides containing many interesting sketches and models, also makes the claim that cleverly integrated wind power generators allow the building to be 'off the grid' http://www.verticalfarm.com/images/design/ip/Waimo nd_Ip.pdf I'm suspicious, but it sounds like they're making the attempt.