The Rise of Urban Farming
Grow fruits and vegetables in city towers? Advocates give a green thumbs up
- By T. A. Frail
- Smithsonian magazine, July-August 2010, Subscribe
More people than ever are growing food in cities, which happen to be where most of the world’s people now live. In windowsills, on rooftops and in community gardens, they’re burying seeds in Havana, Kinshasa and Hanoi—and in Chicago, Milwaukee and Atlanta. Novella Carpenter’s 2009 memoir, Farm City, trumpets the value of raising chickens, pigs and bees—in Oakland.
Urban farming is a response to a variety of pressures. Large parts of the developing world are facing shortages of water and arable land, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says. Governments and other sponsors have supported urban food-growing projects in Cuba, Colombia, Botswana and Egypt. In the developed world, small-scale urban farms are seen as an antidote to industrialized agriculture’s excesses, including chemical fertilizers that pollute waterways and the high costs, both monetary and environmental, of transporting food to urban markets.
Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, has proposed “vertical farming”: growing food—including fish and poultry—in urban buildings as tall as 30 stories and covering a city block. In his vision, you could eliminate the need for soil by growing plants hydroponically (in a liquid) or aeroponically (in the air). You’d reduce water use and end runoff by recycling water in a closed irrigation system. Transportation costs would be next to nil.
Such a high-rise farm has not yet been built. But in Devon, England, the Paignton Zoo has maintained a hydroponic, controlled-irrigation garden for several months. The yield from its 11,000-odd leafy vegetable plants—lettuce, spinach, herbs—is fed to the animals. The garden takes up 1,000 square feet in a greenhouse, about one-twentieth of what it would require in a field. Kevin Frediani, the zoo’s curator of plants, says its key technology, a system of mobile nine-foot-high racks that help ensure the plants are properly fed and exposed to light and air, could be scaled up.
The maker of those racks, Britain-based Valcent Products Inc., says it is speaking to potential customers in more than 30 countries. “Agriculture has many problems, and it needs to have different methods as part of its armory of solutions,” says Valcent spokesman Tom Bentley. “Vertical farming will be part of that.”
T. A. Frail is a senior editor at Smithsonian.
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Comments (11)
There is a simple rule of thumb that can be applied toward multiple solutions: don't expend energy in order to dissipate energy.
In an agricultural system, resources, like water, are a form of energy. This means: Collect rainwater, don't drain it away. Collect sunlight and extract useful forms of energy from it, rather than expending energy on air conditioning. Produce food in proximity to where it will be used; expend transportation energy for commodities that can't be produced locally, but not on staples.
Coming up with elegant, integrated solutions is not optional. Within the next few decades, we need to double the world's food production, and we won't be able to do it by pumping more fertilizer into existing arable land.
Urban farming is not a new idea. I first read about it in the 1970s, from people who were already doing it.
Posted by j m rowland on October 13,2011 | 12:08 PM
For me the problem with vertical farming as currently being projected is the artisitic images being attached. The example used in this article highlights the problem and may be a cause for polarisating views.
I am an advocate of integrated approaches to resolving the world’s food resource problems. I am therefore trying to make a difference by using technology alongside sustainable stable crop production methods. Lets look at some facts here and see the magnitude of the problem facing us all... food security, or more specifically water availability and land resource use to cultivate crops to feed a growing population is of fundamental significance to all of us. We may not feel it yet but some places in the world are already facing unrest over a lack of land and water (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/aug/17/water.internationalnews). In a world of emerging markets, where competition for stable foods raises local prices, where changes in weather in one part of the world result in price hikes or less availability in another. We should be interested in our governments approach to securing food resources even if we feel less able to lessen the impact of them ourselves. Security of food is a basic human requirement and should not be taken for granted.
A huge challenge faces our modern civilisation to use land well while providing space for other living beings to share our planet. It is a measure of sustainability. Reflect on the impact of Asian palm oil or acacia explosion as 'renewable' resources and the impact this has had on the orangutan (http://www.orangutan.org.uk/conservation/threats-to-habitat).
Read the headlines folks, these issues are a problem for our governments and they dont have the answers. This issue should concern all of us. After all we should all be interested in the future as it is the place where we will live out our lives (to paraphrase Woody Allen).
Posted by kevin frediani on August 27,2010 | 08:53 PM
A bit off the edge on vertical farming (an intriguing idea by the way, for urban systems), but it has always struck me as a strange use of land to have cemetaries. Perhaps vertical cemetaries (retrofit the Sears Tower in Chicago) could be used as monuments/mausoleums, and Forest Lawn acreage could be better used for farming, useable greenspace, etc.
Posted by Jeff Carpenter on August 13,2010 | 12:24 PM
The answer is http://urbanagcorp.com/Home_Page.html
We are available for discussion with anyone on this subject.
Posted by bob hesse on July 19,2010 | 09:21 AM
People tend to get really excited about futuristic designs, but I agree with what Mr. Weigert said above. I don't believe that we will ever see the urban farm pictured in the article's illustration.
Urban farming is not something for the future. It is something that is happening right now all over the world. I was lucky enough to hear Dominic Vitiello speak about his project that tracked and quantified the amount of food being grown and distributed in Philadelphia. I remember well enough to cite any of the numbers, but they were significant.
Posted by Laura Robinson on July 6,2010 | 12:22 PM
I get Frank's point. And as a soil scientist, I am somewhat appalled at the soil-less emphasis. But the surging interest in urban gardening is undeniable, as are the benefits to the community. Exploring the myriad ways to accomplish this should be encouraged in all its forms.
Posted by Philip Small on July 6,2010 | 11:40 AM
But an existing building in need of much TLC could be used, and retrofitted for the irrigation. Modern agriculture requires capital too (seed, fertilizer, farm equiment, labor, cost to ship, etc.). In places where water is scarce, I think this model could be particularly viable.
Posted by Rachel on July 6,2010 | 11:23 AM
Developping structures exclusively for food production would be a waste of space, as most existing structures could integrate hydroponic or aquaponic systems easily. Such systems can benefit from the "waste heat" of large buildings, recuperating it to maintain growing conditions adequate for a large variety of crops.
I am convinced the future of food production is in proximity units that serve a close-by neighbourhood, reducing transport to a minimum.
Posted by Vincent Joris on July 6,2010 | 10:59 AM
The idea of constructing expensive multistory buildings to grow food crops in urban areas makes no sense??Your statement makes no sense. Yes it is very expensive but, that does not make it nonsense.
Posted by Gary W. on July 5,2010 | 03:14 PM
We are professional farmers, we produce large volumes of various vegetables and fruits in open sky. Over the last few years it is almost impossible to make a profit on our various farm operations. The main reason; the climate, the pests and viruses. We have been tracking the development of the Vertical Farm and it does not only make sense, but it could be economically feasible given today's farming problems that could be avoided in an enclosed, controlled environment.
Posted by David Proenza on July 3,2010 | 01:28 AM
Most of our food today is grown outdoors. Only very expensive produce is grown in greenhouses, and they are generally cheap and flimsy structures. The idea of constructing expensive multistory buildings to grow food crops in urban areas makes no sense. The capital investment required would be out of sight.
Posted by Frank Weigert on July 1,2010 | 07:37 AM