Z-Axis Urban Agriculture: The Vertical Farm Project

Oh, all I can hear in my head is the phrase "Farm.  Immediately."  MAKE IT STOP!!!

Why am I getting images in my head of Kevin McCarthy and Dana Winter ???  Farm Indeed ......

Ha! A professor from Manhattan suggests a Vertical Farm; how provincial!  Living in Houston, millions of us can look out our back windows and see our own farms.  We raise St. Augustine grass, which we carefully fertilize and (if you don't have a gardener) mow. 

I once tried to put in a vegetable garden, and the insects were incredibly appreciative as they devoured the fruits and vegetables of my labor....I suppose I should have been grateful for the protein, but fried 'critters' just don't have the appeal of chicken corpses bought from a refrigerated display at Krogers.

Those who have ever worked on a farm (or had relatives that do) know why Third World kids flee the bucolic joys of 'country life' to live in overcrowded cities worldwide.  Agriculture is a tenuous, backbreaking, soul-sucking, and miserable occupation.  And it pays badly, too (unless you live in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and have become a millionaire by 'farming' the federal government, which will send you checks for NOT raising rice!).   In Thailand, many years ago, a foolish friend agreed to go to his girlfriend's village and help the family out with the rice harvesting.  Heh, heh.  He made points with both the girl and her folks, but swore he'd never do it again... not even pleasing his lady was worth that!

But back to the photo above:  it looks exactly like a parking garage!  And that makes me think: When we all go back to bicycles (more heart-healthy) we can recycle our hundreds of thousands of parking garages nationwide into vertical gardens, illuminated with full-spectrum light emitting diodes (LEDs), and fertilized with... uh, oh.... better skip that idea.... (no, NOT bags purchased from Home Depot and manufactured by Dow Chemical).  

I think we're stuck.  We'll just have to do agriculture the old fashioned way.... hire mega-corporations and let them ship the mushrooms, cabbages, carrots, rutabagas, and so on to us.  At least until civilization collapses (again) and the survivors go back to exterminating the wild animals of the world, and digging in the dirt again like our peasant ancestors did... (after the Agricultural Revolution, that is....)

  Justice!  If I have to work in a cube, why shouldn't my food? 

And then there's that nettlesome "who picks it" problem.  Here in California, everybody loves to hate the Mexicans, but we LOVE our cheap fresh produce.  So, really, the high rise farm idea is actually a "public works" project in the making;  right next to the high rise must also be built a high rise dormitory for the workers, right?  Or are all of the nice boys and girls from the local high schools going to join the new Civilian Conservation Corps and go picking after school?  

I'm calling my commodities broker right now.  I want long calls on soylent green futures.  

On a more serious note, given that we may be at the peak of oil production at the moment, and that a future promising lots of essentially free transportation seems dubious at best, removing the trapsortation externality of remote food production is actually the Shining Hero of this entire idea.  Cities are only habitable because there's farms "out there", and there's still lots of trucks to bring the food in.  When it is no longer possible to drive food a thousand miles and sell it for a profit, one of two things will have to happen:  either people move back onto farms and grow their own food (NOT!), or the farms need to move in to the cities.  BLING!  High rise farms.  

If they all look like this one, bring it on.  Or am I the only one whose city builds incredibly soul-less ugly buildings?  Where's Mike Brady when you need him?

If we are in such dire straights, why does the government keep subsidising the CRP program? (pays farmers to leave acerages fallow for years)

The point being missed here, in my opinion, is that when another 3 billion people inhabit the earth, EVERYTHING will be rationed among the non-rich. It seems distressingly likely that we are following the microbiological model of culture growth in a contained medium of limited resources, and we seem to be just as incapable as bacteria of husbanding our growth media. The inevitable result will be catastrophe. This has been predicted, and ignored, just as consistently as the current economy's meltdown. Famine may be the Great Leveler, but I won't incur the dolor of that knowledge, I hope. All the economists talk about is GROWTH, and no thought is given to the stationary phase, much less the death phase. A pertinent and somewhat disconcerting quote may be in order:

"Population growth is limited by one of three factors: 1. exhaustion of available nutrients; 2. accumulation of inhibitory metabolites or end products; 3. exhaustion of space, in this case called a lack of "biological space".

More can be found here:

http://www.textbookofbacteriology.net/growth.html

It's not pleasant reading. Why we countenance unlimited growth is beyond my poor powers of comprehension. A cursory perusal of the chronicles of the world's plagues and famines makes the case for sex education, family planning, and the empowerment of women the world over, in my opinion. There's so much we could do, but history clearly delineates the prevalence of calamity and our refractory absorption of these lessons.

One wonders how the next dominant species will fare?

Would anyone please be so kind as to respond to the premise that: "It's not about the art, it's about the artist"?

Hooterville, USA...here we come!  Can't help but think of Oliver and Lisa Dougless

Vertical Farms are the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Farms spreadin' up so far and high,
In Manhattan, just build me a countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I don't need no stinkin' hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you, build it in Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Hello city life.
Vertical Farm... we are there.     Oink Oink!

Well, Olivia, I for one welcome our new overlords, and plan to present to them a fruit-basket.

Being from WI ~ were your looking at offic ebuildings one minute & then a cow pasture the next, this concept is totally strange to me.. To be in a high rise office is one thing to be in in a high rise farm is another.

I grew up with city parents and farming grandparents, and lived with both off and on. I learned to drive a tractor at age 8, chopped cotton, fed and milked the cows, and the whole nine yards. I've always had a garden, too. I know about farming, and I know that farming is hard work, and requires a lot of land. I'm not sure how that relates to the nuclear power thingy, but I do know we need energy.

There are knowledgeable people of good will in the green movement, just as there are in farming and energy production. We can not afford to trivialize or decry anyone with a sincere contribution and honest convictions.

The fatal flaw in nuclear power, as I see it, is waste disposal. It's no small thing. The waste is so toxic and long-lived that it totally destroys the 'clean energy' argument of nuclear proponents. When that problem is solved, nukes will be grand entirely. But, I don't see anyone working on it-so far the best idea is to throw it all down a hole. Not comforting.

I can't help but think that if there was as much money spent on solar, battery, wind, and geothermal research and production (and others) as there is on fossil fuels and nuclear, that we'd be far better served with these modalities. But who knows? The level of investment, both corporate and government-fostered, is so rudimentary, that we are still wandering in the wasteland. It is sad that there is always money for dealing death, but it is only grudgingly proffered for improving the quality of life for the commonweal.

I've never understood why so many intelligent, compassionate, and typically open minded people seem to put as much or more energy and thought as to why something like this can't work instead of figuring out how to chip away at the obstacles, or spend energy towards offering a better solution. I spent the better part of my career trying to expunge that thought process that only serves to strangle the life out of the process of innovation. I hate watching ideas die without a fair chance to succeed. It's so average.

I'm obviously a bit full of self-righteous indignation today, but then I always get a little pissy when we have serious topic on the weekend ‘cos that's just not right. It's just that it seems so obvious to me that the population is still growing beyond the availability of resources to sustain it (maybe not in Alaska, Nebraska and Wyoming,) despite the fact that people are digging shallow graves for the very young and old on a minute by minute basis because they are starving to death in third world countries, which by the way seem to be making inroads into what were formerly known as first and second world countries.

It seems our current plan of attack is to continue to transform our ever shrinking farmlands into suburbs and commercial districts that will some day become as densely populated as the cities that they sprang from . . .

Evolution is way too slow; maybe we do need to kick start a paradigm shift of growing crops in the city.

And as my dear old Dad used to say, when your digging yourself into a whole, put the damn shovel down.

BE well

As to high rise farming, it would seem that the practice of urban sprawl out into fertile farm lands is what ought to be done away with and concentrate the cities into vertical dwellings.  Eliminate the sensless waste of water on lawns that aren't necessary; eliminate the need for automotive travel from home to work so as to eliminate the need for fossil fuels and then there would be more of the good and far less of the bad. 

All of this brings, to my mind, our prior discussion of Thomas Friedman's book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded". If we recall some of his comments:

"The world is going to continue to get flatter as emerging economies - especially China and India - catch up with the U.S. in terms of standards of living, education, income, etc. And as they get wealthier and healthier, they're going to have more children...What we can fix is the hot part."

I think that we have to try to fix more than just the "hot part". We not only need to develop world-wide environmental plans, mechanisms, and practices but we also need practical innovation and creative new ideas to allow us to continue surviving as the "dominant species" on Earth.

How will global environmental changes affect our ability to feed the population of the planet? Already, in many areas, there is severe drought and flooding. Famine is an urgent and rising concern. Predictions are this condition will only worsen with time. Vertical farms could provide controlled environments and optimal growing conditions for our food; even for sundry items that may not be native to a particular place or those foods that might not normally grow during a certain season.      

How many people will need to be fed throughout the world? I was intrigued by Friedman's statement indicating as education and wealth increase people are likely to have more children. This appears to be a contrary opinion to previous studies I have read. Olivia mentions sex education, family planning, and the empowerment of women; all concepts usually discussed and practiced in more educated populations and often resulting in fewer births. We often find the poor and less educated generally having more children. Education, as always, needs to be an ongoing effort.

In my opinion, I see vertical farming as just one of many original and exciting developments necessary to assist in dealing with the challenges all of us will be facing, as we look to the immediate future and beyond. No one invention or concept will solve all our problems. It will take a combination of new methods and novel devices to attain our desired goals. I think the worst thing we can do is stubbornly adhere to the status quo.

Plus, think how cool it will be to pick up fresh food, grown right in your own city, not shipped from afar. Mmmm...imagine the juicy, ripe, unbruised tomatoes, picked and eaten at their peak of flavor, not harvested while still green in order to survive the shipping process.

Oh PeterLake, I'm glad you said mea culpa, for it made my mind blissfully fly off on a tangent! It's been a taxing week and all the topics here have been serious and thought provoking. I don't know about anyone else, but I need a break. How about a spot of tea? Please either join with me or turn away from the screen, momentarily, while I do something a little off the wall to recharge my battery (and maybe yours?) 

mea culpa...add an instance of insanity, mix with hot water and milk...voila, it's cuppa tea!

Have a Cuppa Tea

If you feel a bit under the weather,
If you feel a little bit peeved,
Take granny's stand-by potion
For any old cough or wheeze.
It's a cure for hepatitis, it's a cure for chronic insomnia,
It's a cure for tonsillitis and for water on the knee.

Tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea at supper time,
You get tea when it's raining, tea when it's snowing,
Tea when the weather's fine.
You get tea as a mid-day stimulant
You get tea with your afternoon tea
For any old ailment or disease
For Goodness sake have a cuppa tea.

Whatever the situation, whatever the race or creed,
Tea knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree
It knows no motivations, no sect or organization,
It knows no one religion,
Nor political belief.

Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea,
Have a cuppa tea, have a cuppa tea...

Thank you! I feel soooo much better!

We now return you to our regular program...

Madame, I perceive that you are an advocate, and I must therefore confess that I am a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted her meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant, whose kettle scarcely has time to cool, who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnights, and with tea, welcomes the morning.

Apologies to Samuel Johnson...

So much more fun than Doom, n'est ce pas?

C'est vrai!

Looks like it's tea for two :)

I have just returned from my daily communion of a bone-dry-cappuccino followed by a dopio con pana espresso and my corner/trainer says I'm now good for at least three more rounds as long as I keep my hands up.

Does that make it tea for three? Or, are you strictly a coffee drinker? It's gotten very quiet here - I think my attempt at a little levity may have chased everyone away. Obviously I need to take humor more seriously.

Oh, let's make it tea for three, I'm adaptable when it comes to caffiene.  I think I enjoy the rituals of coffee and tea almost as much as drinking it.

How can anyone resist a smile for one who can so quickly and seemlessly transform mea culpa into cuppa tea.

Thanks to you and Olivia I've had to establish a shortcut to the Babelfish site to keep up with your French.

If its ever too quite at the eye, just whistle.

I have been hard at it today so I am only now jumping in.  Lets think global and lets think green.  While we here at home in America feel perfectly capable of feeding ourselves, Olivia is spot on.  Our population will expand dramatically over the next 50 years.  Even if it were to stay the same, there are at least two possibly three large countries looking to dramitaccly improve their standard of living at the same time and therefore eat more.  So vertical farming may go a long way to addressing not only the feeding of our people but at the same time doing so not at the expence of our great mother earth.  In this global world we cannot make the same mistakes as in the past.  Someone said the wealthy would be living high off the hog and the poor would be rationing.  Well there are countries that are already there.

I read a little something about the Malthusin concept that human population growth would out grow food production as a cause for collapse.  Would local collapses around the world have an effect on Americans?  Should we care? Catherine Andre and Jean Philippe Platteau, Belgian economists have detailed cause and effect of the Malthusin concept in Rwanda where in a battle for food in the densest population in Africa it is not a battle between Tutsi and Hutu but rather the ''Haves'' and the '' Have Nots''.  These people are producing five childern per female starting at the age of fifteen.  Imagine how desperate you are for your oldest to move out, only to find your parents are moving back in and you are feeding them on your 3/4 of a acre of land, and there is no where else to go.  I am sure they would really jump at vertical farming over genocide.  Why should we care...because somehow we are all One mankind.

 So lets look at the demand on the land and the ecosystem impact of having to till up that much more land to feed everyone.  Then lets look at the loss of oxygen producing trees we lose in the trade off.  Then lets look at the toxic run off from the pestacides on all that new farm land.  The lets weigh this against the ability to grow up and control the environment and the environmental impact of growing food.  I am wondering what the cost distribution -v- technology coats trade offs are to grow the food in Manhattan as opposed to shipping it in. 

Kindlee...is that your poetry?  DO you have any coffee ?

I would love a bit of tea right now.

Kindlee, sorry to have left you out I see you are on board with the global environment and the notion that food just doen't appear in the gorcery store.    Horahh for all those that are.

test wher eare my comments going?

I agree with caprichosmorales. This all seems backwards. Save the real soil for farmland, build up the human structures. Build farms out and people up.
Would populizing harsh areas [deserts, tundras] help this situation? I can't really decide.
Cities tend to turn areas, no matter the natural features or climate, into enviromentally usless land anyway, so what if we populize an area with the sole purpose of unurbanizing perfectly useful farmland?
I don't know.
I spent the first ten years of my life in a four story house in the middle of nowhere [we have since downsized three times].
We raised goats just for the hell of it and had neighbors with acres and acres of fruit trees and bee hives.
I know that people want to live in these sorts of places, but do farmers really want to work in cities?

High five for espresso, PeterLake. I take mine slightly childishly; four shots of espresso on ice with a shot of chocolate syrup and nothing more. [called a Bottle Rocket at my local coffee shop.] In the summer I go through three a day.

[Sorry that I've never around, kids.
I miss you guys.
Bleh, school, teen agnst, you know the drill.
Only life update I can offer you is that I've dyed the outer layer of my hair bright red.]

Hi Lovey!  Been wondering how you are doing.   Red, well it is a color for the holidays.  Stay young and keep in touch.

Have A Cuppa Tea was sung by The Kinks. Not my usual cuppa tea, when it comes to music, but I'm a tea drinker and I liked the lyrics.

I also enjoy a good cuppa joe. For coffee, there's this little Frank Sinatra ditty:

Coffee Song

Way down among brazilians
Coffee beans grow by the billions
So they've got to find those extra cups to fill
They've got an awful lot of coffee in brazil

You cant get cherry soda
cause they've got to fill that quota
And the way things are Ill bet they never will
They've got a zillion tons of coffee in brazil

No tea or tomato juice
You'll see no potato juice
The planters down in Santos all say no, no, no

The politicians daughter
Was accused of drinking water
And was fined a great big fifty dollar bill
They've got an awful lot of coffee in brazil

You date a girl and find out later
She smells just like a percolator
Her perfume was made right on the grill
Why they could percolate the ocean in brazil

And when their ham and eggs need savor
Coffee ketchup gives ‘em flavor
Coffee pickles way outsell the dill
Why they put coffee in the coffee in brazil

So your lead to the local color
Serving coffee with a cruller
Dunking doesn't take a lot of skill
They've got an awful lot of coffee in brazil

Doom AND tea is a lovely combination, especially if the doom in question is violent, and one is drinking Gunpowder Tea.  There's a tea for every occasion.

Les grains de cafe', ils ont de Brazil? Zut! Eh, bien...

Moi, je voudrais

Une tres chaud tasse de the...

Une tasse si grande, il me fait occupe'.

Et ma tasse, grande et blanche,

Je peut boivre tout le jour Dimanche!

Oui c'est vrai, c'est tres bien avec une tranche

Du pain grille', de la confiture.

N'oubliez pas, c'est de rigueur:

Jamais jamais jamais dans la voiture!

...who let the doggerels out? ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!

A lot of life consists in rearranging the chairs on The Titanic, and a lot of discussion is what color is most harmonious with nature.... In the meantime we chug along, oblivious to the icebergs.  The saying is that God looks out for fools and children, but then I think of the last chapter of 'Cat's Cradle' and I'm not so sure...

Incidentally, civilization is dated from about the Agricultural Revolution (about 10,000 years ago).  The half-life of plutonium-139 is 24,000 years.  To put 24,000 years into context, Mount Everest's height is about 29,000 feet; the time since the first atom bomb would be about the height of a medium size pine tree.  That stuff is going to be around for a LOONNGGG time!

Human brains aren't particularly good at measuring magnitudes..... And our ability to predict the future isn't particularly good either....or I'd be a multi-millionaire and so would you!

I find it a bit weird that folks want to build nuclear power plants when we have an enormous thermonuclear energy generator about 8.5 minutes (at the speed of light) away.  It's called the sun, and it doesn't need any containment vessels and its waste products stay right there, stuck in place a cool phenomenon we humans call gravity.  We are graced by zillions of photons emanating from that big gas ball, and we keep talking about how we are running out of energy!  Humans are indeed blind!

Kindlee,

Ray Davies is such a good songwriter.  Especially his solo efforts post-Kinks. Sounds like caffeine for at least six.

Lovey,

Always a treat when you stop by the neighborhood.  A "Bottle Rocket" sounds like an excellent after dinner drink, or perhaps before or after any meal seems like a good enough reason to have one of those. Zounds awesome!

Olivia,

" ..who let the doggerels out? ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! "   Perfecto mundo!

Olivia,

J'adore le the et le pain grille avec confiture

et en sautant sauvagement avec les kangourous.

J'aime aussi le plaisir et l'aventure

quand je passe de temps a parler avec vous.

Under the best of circumstances, even in English, I am not a poet...bonne nuit.

I think "swell" is a Jefffersonian variant (some cretinous hobgoblins might say mis-spelling - BAH!) of the word "swale", which is a berm of earth raised on the downhill side of a planted something or other to stop the flow of water. The swale creates a small depression centered around (like in my case) an apple tree on a hillside, and water will settle into the ground above the swale, giving the target plant there an extra reservoir of moisture.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/terms/go/900/