I’m not even talking about herbivores like cows, goats, or sheep.” So, the size of South America, in land mass, is used just to grow our crops that we plant and harvest. It turns out to be the size of South America. “Another thing we can learn, from NASA of all places, is how much land those 7 billion people - half urban, half rural - actually need to produce their food every year. “As of this moment, the WHO (World Health Organization) and the Population Council estimate that about 50 percent of us live in cities and the other half, of course, live somewhere else,” Despommier said in a video. Dickson Despommier puts forth the theory that vertical farming is a prime candidate to help solve the growing food, water, and energy crisis in the United States.Īs populations continue to rise in urban centers around the globe, Despommier sees no other solution. In his seminal book, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, Dr. So, who’s right? Should we start building giant, garden-stuffed skyscrapers in our cities, or abandon the idea and devote our efforts to improving existing (horizontal) farms? Could vertical farming legitimately help us meet the world’s growing demand for food, or are we chasing the proverbial pie in the sky? Upward trajectory: the benefits of growing vertically In their eyes, vertical farming simply isn’t something that can be deployed on a large enough scale, and therefore isn’t a viable solution to our problems. Critics are quick to point out the method’s shortcomings when it comes to efficiency, effectiveness, and cost. If these farms were built in cities, we could potentially mitigate crop loss due to shipping and storage, and cut down on fossil fuel usage because food wouldn’t need to be transported very far after harvest.īut of course, the idea of indoor farming isn’t without its detractors. In theory, indoor farms could allow us to grow food 24 hours a day, protect crops from unpredictable weather, and even eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. There’s now a rapidly expanding movement to bring this type of food production to urban centers all over the globe. Recently, the facility (and others like it) has become a poster child for indoor farming. “We’re talking coming in and supplying 10, 20, 30 percent of the food supply of an entire city.”
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