FOOD: Vertical Farming!

When a region starts to run out of space for their people, they go vertical. Considering the recent concern over food supplies and prices, partially caused by increased use of food for fuel, it makes sense that someone thought of 'vertical farming'! That someone is Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University.

His class experiment's conclusion is that growing food in a 30-story building — one square New York City block — could supply a balanced diet for 50,000 people. One building could supply the same amount of food as 588 acres of land. One hundred and ten buildings could feed New York City.

The goal: Replace all traditional, horizontal farming including plowing, planting and harvesting with a vertical greenhouse that grows every crop including grains (ie., wheat, rice, barley), vegetables, fish (salt and freshwater, crustaceans), poultry and pork (not cows).

The farms would be supplied with renewable energy and the crops would be watered and fertilized with treated waste material. The carbon footprint savings would be substantial because most products would be distributed locally!

Michael Pollan, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that for every calorie of food, we burn 10 calories of oil! That means a head of lettuce that costs $1.49 a head has 75 cents of oil in it. If I don't have to transport it, store it or even wrap it in cellophane, I can sell it for half price and still make a lot of money.

According to professor Despommier, there will be a vertical farm within the next four years.