The Little Things Count

The problem with a growing world population is that we will run out of land at some point, and by 2050 80% of the 9 billion or so will be living in cities/urban areas. That alone will encroach on the land with new homes built, whether they are shanty towns or wealthy cities, the amount of land we will be able to use for food production is likely to decrease. This is without taking into consideration any affects regional and/or global climate change will have upon crop yield. Already we have seen prolonged drought in Australia, summers in Saskatchewan becoming drier and hotter, as in Europe, this doesn’t prove climate change, it is weather variations that are becoming more extreme. The weather varies, yes, but in the last decade weather events have set and broken records of all kinds – strengths of hurricanes, hottest temperatures, and driest summers, heaviest snowfalls. These are weather variations, to be considered climate changes one would have to collect and observe data from a period of 30 years, otherwise it’s purely weather activity and it would be foolish to predict future climates by judging a cold winter.

So, with a lot more people to food and a slight reduction in the suitable area for growing crops, mankind is faced with a ‘food crisis’ as dubbed by the media, make no mistake, it isn’t over, it can only get worse unless we radically change the way we grow our food. One concept, put forward by, Dickson Despommier, professor of Environmental Health and Microbiology at the Columbia University in New York City in 1999, may provide a solution.

The concept, “vertical farming”, growing large amounts of food in urban skyscrapers, sometimes called “farmscrapers”. Imagine a 30 storey greenhouse, full of tomatoes, that doesn’t seem like a very new idea does it? Tomatoes have been grown indoors for a long time, the difference is the size of building in which they are grown. Where the concept is new is using cutting edge technologies to grow crops other than tomatoes, herbs, etc.  inside. The entire multi-storey farm would be self-sufficient powered by solar, wind and bio-energy, there would be no waste and all the water recycled and re-used within the farm. That might sound somewhat futuristic and expensive, but all of the technologies needed to do this are available now, and have been for some time. Despommier has explained that “Each floor will have its own watering and nutrient monitoring systems”, which is a technology used extensively in market gardening. The climate could be controlled electronically, and if local soil is still used to grow the crops, it’s still a very natural way of growing crops. Crops would not fail due to droughts, floods or pest and with a climate and nutrient control system there would be no need for herbicides, pesticides or fertilizer, making entire crops organic. Vertical farms may even product energy that could be sent back to the grid via methane that is produced from the composting of non-edible plants (and animals).

One interesting fact that makes vertical farms such a clever and environmentally friendly option is the amount of space needed, not only would there be year-round crop production,  but 1 indoor acres is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, it varies with each crop, for example, 1 indoor acre of strawberries = 30 outdoor acres). [Source]

So, in about 20 years can I expect to see the countryside covered in skyscrapers growing food? 

No, encroaching upon the land to build vertical farms would defeat the object of having them, and that many may produce a surplus of food given how much more productive each indoor acre is. Despommier’s vision is to have vertical farms built where the people are, in the cities, which makes sense if 80% of that 9 billion will be living in cities, this will allow a continuous supply of fresh food, and reduce transport costs with delivery only being tens of miles instead of the current hundreds or even thousands of miles. That will in turn dramatically reduce the emissions of from agriculture, that with letting the currently farmed land return to the natural ecosystems they were thousands of years ago will benefit the environment beyond what any current generation has seen.