by Lars A. Bratteberg in Issue 7: Turmoil (18 April 2009)
In the year 2050 there will be an estimated nine billion people in the world. (9,309,051,539 according to the US Census Bureau. (We’ll see how well that plays out. (Oh, well.))) 80% of these 9,309,051,539 (7,447,241,231.2?) are projected to be living in urban centers. If farming is to continue being practiced in traditional fashion, 109 hectares of new land is estimated required to grow sufficient food to sustain the people. That is a land mass of 20 percent more than what makes up the country of Brazil. Oh, and it seems 80 percent of the earth’s land suitable for farming is presently in use.
Dickson Despommier is fronting a concept of his called the Vertical Farm Project, which aims to use urban space to optimize food supply. He argues this project is the upgrade the technology of indoor farming needs to accommodate future generations. From the project’s outline it says:
Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
Eliminating costs of long transport, inhabitants of cities would get their vegetables and other crop from a nearby high-rise. Seeing as city dwellers are predicted a 20% increase towards 2050, crop transport will increase as a requisite. Despommier estimates at least 10,000 people could have their food needs met from one vertical farm on one city block, it being 100,000 square feet per floor, 30 stories high. There are several designs and architectural plans by this time, many of them for different types of vertical farms, suited for specific needs.
The growing process in the vertical farm can be fully organic with no use of pesticides, and being indoors, the crops find protection from the elements. The farm would be weather-controlled, enabling year-round farming despite which season it might be. Black and gray water from the farm’s city would be recycled and used for the water needs indoors. At this point, at least, the project seems riddled with advantages to conventional farming. This vision of the future might well be one that turns into reality - and if it did it would transform most skylines and cityscapes, as it would transform the face of agriculture.
