Vertical Farming

[Felix2010]

What are peoples thoughts on vertical farming?

Urban populations are more efficient and have less of an impact on the natural environment per capita, the problem comes when people living in urban areas are forced to buy food that is shipped in for an average of 2000 miles away.

Vertical farming would basically be a farm inside of a building, not a factory farm but one with plenty of grazing space and it would grow the feed locally, with a store for purchasing produced, meat etc. right there ont he ground floor.

[TheSilentChamber]

Completely unlogical to have one of any scale.

[Wai]

I remember vertical farms on science books for children 20 years old. Why not?

[TheSilentChamber]

Small scale farms are hundreds of acres, large scale are hundreds of thousands and up. There is no way you would ever build a structure this big, that would cover this much area, and support this much weight; and on top of that reclaim more energy by having it closer to people then you would have used building the structure.

[Sambo]

It's been covered. Here. Most recently here. As it is right now, farm land is too cheap in comparison to the construction for one of these buildings. Perhaps somewhere where land is much more valuable like Hawaii.

[hillsidedigger]

Less not more land needs to allocated for farming.

[TheSilentChamber]

So you think there should be less farming?

[hillsidedigger]

So you think there should be less farming?

There can be just as much farming but on far less land.

Hundreds of millions of acres, mostly in the tropics but also extensive areas in the temperate zones, should be reforested/allowed to return to natural grassland and scrub if not rewilded.

A good example is the leasing for grazing of public land in the western U.S.. Such is only very marginally productive of food, at great subsidized expense, and these lands would serve us better in a natural state. The great social irrigation projects of the Southwest cost more than they produce as well. The deserts should be allowed to bloom naturally.

[TheSilentChamber]

but thats using the same amount of land, just in different locations.

[inkabinkaboo182]

Urban farming, especially when integrated with a building of another purpose, is an extremely good idea. It makes the best use of space, produces local food, and encourages dense urban living. Also, with greenhouses, it could produce food year-long.

Even if a practically-sized urban farm only feeds a fraction of a city, then why not still build it? It will still feed that fraction of a major city.

[jcoffman]

Even if a practically-sized urban farm only feeds a fraction of a city, then why not still build it? It will still feed that fraction of a major city.

Whats your idea of a practically sized farm? Also who would manage it? Who would pay for it? Who would be responsible for the upkeep? The millions of acreas used for farming now will be hard to make up for using roof top gardens.

[inkabinkaboo182]

Are you saying the world doesn't have enough people to keep up urban farms? That just doesn't make sense.

As for your second comment - that was what I was saying. Even if urban (vertical) farming doesn't completely replace traditional farming (which it most likely won't), it will at least replace a portion of it for areas that would otherwise need their food shipped into them.

[Sambo]

Wow jcoffman, you want someone to chew it for you also?

What I think Ross is getting at would be a rooftop garden or even a victory garden. It's not going to solve many problems but taking care of yourself is where to start. I don't mean to preach ...

[inkabinkaboo182]

That's kind of what I'm talking about. But ideally, buildings built for this purpose would utilize their surfaces in the most efficient ways possible, such as the ones linked to above. One of them would supply food for 35,000 people. While that's only a fraction of a large city's population, it is still feeding a lot of people. Especially if there were hundreds of these buildings scattered throughout a city.

[jcoffman]

Wow jcoffman, you want someone to chew it for you also?

Great.... I wont respond on your level rather I will simply make my point...

Ink talks about a practically sized urban farm and feeding a fraction of a city. My questions were simple. While Ink and I dont agree on everything, we can have a decent conversation/debate. I am simply wanting to know who would be responsible for building and maintaining these structures. Someone has to maintain them. So if these rooftop gardens are going to be large enough to sustain a population rather than just a family someone will have to manage them just like a traditional farm.