Vertical Farming

I thought this idea was very interesting indeed. The had never heard or thought of Urban farming except maybe in Brown land under bridges etc etc.

Vertical farming

The costs are not shown but I would think that the cost of set up would be the same as buying land?

Good idea though

This sounds awesome. I'd like to see one in every city. It would be a good way to teach city kids about where their food comes from.

I hope they get it off the ground (pardon the pun).

And exactly what is the carbon footprint of having to build this building ?

The world is full of wide open spaces where it is cheaper and less energy intensive to both grow and transport farm produce to market.

For example, it is less energy intensive to raise beef and lamb in New Zealand and ship the meat all the way around the globe than it is to raise the same livestock in the UK.

Actually, I've been toying with an idea similar to this where you use and indoor system with plants grown on shelves. The purpose is to grow food in places where horizontal space is at a premium, or if you're wanting to grow food in an area not good for farming at all like antarctica or death valley. You couldn't grow pecan trees or orange trees, but you could grow melons, berries and other small sized crops.

When you're able to keep the pests out, control the temp, lighting and water usage, you'll get high yield from a relatively small area, plus there is no need for introducing pesticides, herbicides or using genetically modified plants. It would be the best way to get the most mileage from an organic crop. You could operate year round in any hostile weather conditions.

Besides, how do you think they're going to grow food on the moon and mars. You can't do it like here anyway. Might as well start it here and develope it until they need it.

Originally posted by CAPT PROTON
Actually, I've been toying with an idea similar to this where you use and indoor system with plants grown on shelves.

They do a similar bit of indoor farming in Amsterdam as well, ask for their help

Besides, how do you think they're going to grow food on the moon and mars. You can't do it like here anyway. Might as well start it here and develope it until they need it.

On the moon there is abundant solar energy and cost is the least consideration.

Have you never heard of people growing dope indoors with hydroponics. Sure they get great crops but they have to use banks of heat lamps and burn as much energy in one house as a whole factory.

That's how law enforcement find these indoor cannabis plantations, by their signature excessive use of energy.

Here we are worrying about global warming and you guys want to put farms inside high rises where they need huge amounts of energy to grow crops ?

I heard of a related concept today -- using city rooftops as garden areas and encouraging people to plant crops and trees there. In addition to helping clean the air, it would also help cool down the city environment.

I don't know if you ever noticed the amount of heat generated by paved and flat roofed surfaces, but it's enormous. Here in the South, if you step out onto a parking lot in the middle of the day, the temperature can be as much as 20 degrees hotter on the pavement than it is in the shade of a building or the shade of a tree. Urban and suburban environments are becoming literal melting pots, and without the greenery to keep down pollution, people in these areas are also seeing a rise in asthma and other diseases related to bad air quality.

Rooftop or high rise farms is a very plausible idea... even if it's not a very new one.

Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture department actually has quite a bit of information about this:
files.abovetopsecret.com...

Added advantages (from their website) include:
Reasons to Rooftop Garden...
Increase access to private outdoor green space-at home or at work-within the urban environment
Support urban food production
Promote individual, community, and cultural diversity
Improve air quality and reduce CO2 emissions
Delay stormwater runoff
Increase habitat for birds
Insulate buildings
Increase the value of buildings for owners and tenants alike
Create job opportunities in the field of research, design, construction, Iandscaping/gardening, health, and food production

What's REALLY odd...

Chicago's been doing it since 2000:
www.csmonitor.com...

But all's not song and roses -- there are some challenges in dealing with skyscraper skylines like Manhattan:
www.drip-irrigation-solutions.com...

A good productive farm is 100's of acres, a rooftop is only big enough for a garden. The vertical building may be 5 or 10 acres in the pic, thats not very much food. It takes 1000's of acres to just produce a slice of demand.
Its a good idea, but only for gardens not produce.

Rooftop gardens are one thing. Realistically growing worthwhile crops there is another.

I am not opposing rooftop gardens Byrd. I do point out however that many structural engineers will be grinding their teeth about the extra loads imposed by tons of rain saturated soil on rooftops. If a building can't support a helipad then it can't support a rooftop garden either. Not many city buildings can support helipads.

The original concept mentioned tower buildings with farming on every floor.

Ever walked into a car parking building during the day with minimal lighting ?

In order to grow anything you need heat lamps which suck the national power grid dry.

Originally posted by sy.gunson

Here we are worrying about global warming and you guys want to put farms inside high rises where they need huge amounts of energy to grow crops ?

If you read the article, you would have understood that they would be using solar energy for a large portion of the activity.

So we should not be growing crops in cities because it uses energy or we shouldn't be using energy? This building would not need to use a lot of energy...

Why don't we all stop driving cars around and using AC?

Oh yeah because its convenient and there's no real better alternatives right now.

Long distance travel is easier due to the invention of cars, trains, and planes.

If there was something better, I'm sure most of us would be using it.

If there was some better way to grow crops (besides on an organic farm) I'm sure it would be done already.

This is a step in the right direction.

It takes more energy to import fruits and vegetables then it would take to grow the stuff locally with vertical farms using growlamps. The higher fuel prices become the more economical this concept is.

Here is the first story that turned me on to the vertical farming concept.

No Green Acres? Try Skyscrapers

Saving the cost of energy is a big part of OrganiTech's near-term business plan. As of mid-2005, it cost as much as 50 cents to transport a 1-pound head of lettuce from California (where 85 percent of America's lettuce is grown) to the East Coast, according to Ram Acharya, an agricultural economist at Arizona State University. If the lettuce can be grown near where it's eaten, it will have an automatic cost advantage.

OrganiTech can supply a complete set of robotic equipment plus greenhouse for $2 million. A system the size of a tennis court can produce 145,000 bags of lettuce leaves per year -- that's a yield similar to a 100-acre traditional farm. According to the company, it costs 27 cents to produce a single head of lettuce with its system, compared to about 18 cents per head of lettuce grown in California fields. Factor in the transportation costs and suddenly the automated greenhouse grower saves as much as 43 cents a head.

[edit on 21-6-2007 by sardion2000]

There are about 700,000 acres of orange trees in florida. That doesnt count california which I think has more. There isnt no way you could even nock a dent in that with vertical or rooftop farming.
Vertical or rooftop is good for gardens but thats about it.

There isnt no way you could even nock a dent in that with vertical or rooftop farming.

You wouldn't be able to dent it with rooftop farming but vertical farming I completely disagree.

system the size of a tennis court can produce 145,000 bags of lettuce leaves per year -- that's a yield similar to a 100-acre traditional farm.

So in order to equal Florida you'd need to build 7000 tennis court footprint vertical farms full of Orange Trees. That isn't that much when you consider how much money the consumer will be saving due to radically reduced transportation costs. Of course they are talking about lettuice so the yields will vary from plant to plant.

www.treehugger.com...

Here is the Sky farm proposed for Downtown Toronto that was mentioned previously.

It's got 58 floors, 2.7 million square feet of floor area and 8 million square feet of growing area. It can produce as much as a thousand acre farm, feeding 35 thousand people per year and providing tomatoes to throw at the latest dud at the Princess of Wales Theatre to the east, and olives for the Club District to the north. Thankfully it overwhelms the horrid jello-mold Holiday Inn to the west.

It's footprint is the size of one city block and produces as much food as a 1000 acre farm. If all the economics work out(ie Transportation costs drastically lowered), expect to see many more of these pop up in and around cities in the West.

[edit on 21-6-2007 by sardion2000]

Yea well thats lettuce not orange trees I think orange tees are a little bigger.
Then you got the tomatos, peppers, watermelons, cucumbers ect ect.
It would take a lot of vertical buildings enough to make more than one city im sure. Meantime you got millions of farming acres just sitting there, doesnt make sense. It only makes sense for a person in the city to grow a garden on there rooftop. And there is nothing wrong with that, I think its great but not for commercial produce.

I bet if you compare the cost to that building with a 1000 acres in Florida it would make more sense.

[edit on 21-6-2007 by earth2]

Sardion, great find.

We could use more of those in big cities.

Not only would it cut down on fuel costs for transporting food, it would create jobs.

earth, I understand your argument about using farmland.

I think the idea is that there would be little farmland close to a large metropolitan area. Wouldn't it make sense to produce food in the city rather than sending it on a long trip from the farm?

Its not maybe THE best option because open air farm grown food would probably be better than something grown hydroponically, but it definitely is a start don't you think?

This could be a test run for growing food in space.

Absolutely Biggie, its a start for space and what have you, but to use as a produce for earth, not. Just wouldnt make sense. But yes we need to experiment as much as possible for future reasons.

Originally posted by earth2

I bet if you compare the cost to that building with a 1000 acres in Florida it would make more sense.

[edit on 21-6-2007 by earth2]

That's short term thinking. In the long run Fuel savings would overshadow the initial cost of building these farms. For the first 5 to 10 years they can match the price of the regular farms to get a higher profit margin and once the initial setup is paid off they can start undercutting. It's the way economics works. You gotta spend money to make money.

Meantime you got millions of farming acres just sitting there, doesnt make sense.

Conventional farming(even Organic Farming) is very wasteful. You gotta deal with crop losses, too much rain, too little rain, hurricanes, floods, pests, erosion, rot, fungus and disease outbreaks. Not to mention all the runoff caused by the overuse of pesticides and fertilizers from the conventional farms. It makes more sense to go towards vertical farms from an Economic and Environmental perspective.

When the majority of people on this planet live in or near cities it just makes sense to grow the food where the people are.

I don't know why you're ignoring the most important point here, and that is fuel savings but whatever...

[edit on 21-6-2007 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by earth2
Absolutely Biggie, its a start for space and what have you, but to use as a produce for earth, not. Just wouldnt make sense. But yes we need to experiment as much as possible for future reasons.

Its obviously only a trial. If it doesn't work, fine.

But I think its worth a shot. Everything is worth trying once right?

I'm glad there are people inventing green designs.

I plan on studying green design as soon as I start school again in the fall.

Should be a great class.

I hope the rest of the world starts building eco-friendly though.

Not only is it cheaper, but it is less costly on our environment.

God knows we only have one planet and if we mess this one up we're all screwed

Here is a very detailed essay about vertical farming. I urge everyone to check it out.

www.verticalfarm.com...

Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of
evapotranspiration
VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible
parts of plants and animals
VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
VF creates new employment opportunities
We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on
earth
VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical
LDCs. If this should prove to be the case, then VF may be a catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for sustainable food production.
VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water
and land for agriculture

[edit on 21-6-2007 by sardion2000]