Vertical Farming

SolFire writes "The BBC is running a look at the potential for Vertical Farming in the Big Apple, a concept that promises to reduce the environmental impact of farming and increase the efficiency of food production by building multi-story farm complexes in urban areas. The vertical farm is envisioned as a self sustaining complex of greenhouses stacked on top of each other. More details can be found on the project web site."

Comments

Price of land?

[merreborn]

A 10 story building in NYC is still going to be way more expensive than 100 acres out in nowheresville, Kansas, isn't it?

Uh..

[kmac06]

Um...don't you need sunlight to grow (almost) anything? How exactly do you propose to get enough sunlight by going vertical! I suppose maybe some crops can get enough sunlight near sunrise and sunset...

Re:Uh..

[Ceriel Nosforit]

Energy would come from a giant solar panel but there would also be incinerators which use the farm's waste products for fuel.

And with the solar panels, the energy should be enough for.... Hmmm. Lets see now... - Ah! One level! We can do away with the other stories and grow things right on the ground. What an incredible breakthrough! Mother Nature would never figure it out.

And the version for the sarcastically impaired;
Plants are more efficient than solar cells. The energy output will never exceed the input. Therefore, this is a dumb idea.

Say what?

[pongo000]

a concept that promises to reduce the environmental impact of farming

Thereby freeing up arable land for more "environmentally friendly" endeavors, like factories and housing developments.

Give me a break. How about spending this money on ways to reduce the world's population growth? Lack of arable land is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

The report says most of the 3 billion people to be added to world population in the next 50 years would be born in areas where land was scarce. If the grain-land area in the world stayed the same as in 2000, the 9 billion people projected to inhabit the planet in 2050 would each be fed from less than 0.07 hectares of grain-land -- an area smaller than what is available per person today in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, which face the shortage of land..
(link)

Re:The top layer is for growing plants

[Odiumjunkie]

> All the bottom layers are for growing mushrooms and cockroaches.

I imagine you're being facetious, but actually, growing edible mushrooms in an urban environment makes a lot of sense - many vigourous strains of edible fungi will grow happily on substrates like discarded coffee grounds, newspaper* and cardboard. Think how much more efficient recycling of cellulose-based waste would be if you didn't have to ship it hundreds of miles to a recycling facility - in fact, you didn't really have to process it at all, except steeping it in water and doing a mild pasteurisation. Best of all, once the fungi has exhausted the substrate, it makes a great compost (most fungi don't use up the nitrogen present in such substrates) which can then be used for agriculture on higher levels! Sustainable and delicious!

*this applies to Western countries, where newspapers are now predominantly printed using soy-based non-toxic inks. This is not a good idea wherever lead-based inks are prevalent, fungi can accumulate heavy metals.

Re:Economics?

[panzagloba]

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? 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. 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! 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.

Emphasis on the light, please.

[khasim]

Anyone who's worked in even the most windowed office building knows that only the spaces next to the windows get the light.

Plants need light to grow. The windows can only supply so much. So the other light has to be artificially produced (which eats energy).

The soil, the water, fertilization, etc can all be handled fairly naturally. But some of it will have to be imported. This is not "self sustained" by any means.

But the biggest factor is energy consumption. Is it cheaper to spend the energy to move crops from 100% natural light into the city or is it cheaper to spend the energy on artificial light and grow the crops inside the city?

Re:Emphasis on the light, please.

[bahstid]

Exactly - was horrified that their little artists impressions used a ROUND building. These things need to be long and thin and orientated on an east-west axis... further improvements could also be made by staggering the floors to get some extra light into the lower levels (a slight triangular cross section) and also using sloped/terraced floor slabs...

Also I don't understand the exclusive-use mentality. The core (low light or north-facing depending on your hemisphere) areas could be turned over to other uses, and the whole thing could be seen as a balcony farm arrangement instead. Instead of staring out at the rest of the concrete jungle, I would be pretty happy to have a bunch of green things outside my window. This also makes it easier to pay for the building when you get to sell some office/living/retail space to go along with it.

These people don't seem to have thought very creatively about what they are up to. It seems more an idea of how to arrange a traditional horizontal farm within limited city space. 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....

I think urban farming is really an important thing that we should be thinking about reviving, but if you gonna think out of the box, don't just look out....

Re:Emphasis on the light, please.

[Jon Kay]

I don't see it working. There are three problems:

(1) Farming doesn't pay. Really. Compared to industries like money, insurance, and even publishing, farming comes out to terrible labor conditions and abject poverty. It'll be very hard to find workers or to ever get as much money as from rent on the same volume.

(2) There's no space crisis in farming, contrary to the webpage - in fact, many acres have been retired from farming and are being retired today as well.

(3) Did I mention farming really, really, really doesn't pay?

Re:arcology

[flight_master]

I agree... this... is... interesting :S.
I'm a farmer, but I can't help say "ROFL!" to this.

We grow thousands of acres per farmer... you couldn't fit one of us inside each greenhouse. Not to mention, how are they planning on harvesting grains, oilseeds, pulse crops, etc? I don't think a combine will fit in that building... Are we going to be doing it by hand? That would really be interesting!

If they want to do this for vegetables, fine. However, for "field" crops, this is just plain nonsense from a bunch of guys who have never even seen a farm.

Re:arcology

[timeOday]

Some guy in I think Toronto doing this...

I just searched this page (already 100s of comments) for "marijuana," and surprisingly got no hits. If you want to know who's pioneering indoor farming, it's them.