Max: A Bit Of The Future
The Vertical Farm Project
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
posted by Max Dobberstein at 6/20/2007 03:34:00 PM
3 Comments:
We've seen this before - this is an old idea.
They used to call it hydroponics. The idea was that you could grow food in water and nutrients. You could grow food indoors. Hydroponics has indeed produced some results. However, the factory farm out on the prarie with its migrant labor still produces more, faster and cheaper. Not better. Just more and it's faster and cheaper.
I don't see attitudes changing in the next 50 years to the point where building a large building for farming purposes will be "cost effective" in anyone's minds.
If that was the case, I think we'd see archologies grow up first. Maybe incorporating this "agriology" within a massive archology might work.
I like the idea of planting food closer to urban centers. You could grow varieties of produce that might not be as hardy but taste better - they wouldn't need to be shipped, so their shelf life need not be as long. Food would be that much fresher. Imagine getting veggies that were just picked that day on your table everynight! You could have a "Farmer's Market" right at the base of the building.
It's a great idea. But, as we've seen with archologies, a great idea can sit on the shelf for 40 or 50 years and never be used.
So what you are saying is that no one should adopt a new idea until someone else adopts it?
No.
What I'm saying is that it's a great idea that no one will ever adopt. It's expensive and smart and logical - no one understands those things.
Especially not in this country.
Expensive and smart things are usually only adopted when cheap and fast is no longer feasible or possible.
Look at the world around you. We as a nation are taking global warming seriously only after we were hit by Katrina. Scientists have been talking global warming for decades. Katrina may have been preventable.
Same thing with alternative fuels - this country went through a serious gas crisis in the 70's and we still didn't develop alternate fuels. Gas got cheap, we forgot the issue and countries like Brasil went entirely to alcohol based fuels. There are still people in this country claiming that 100% alcohol fuels won't work. I guess they have never been to Brasil! Probably couldn't find it on the map!
I once had a contractor sit right in front of me and tell me that the product I prefered would do the exact job I needed done and it would do it beautifully. However, because it was expensive, there was no way it would be chosen. Instead, a third rate product was chosen. This product has proven more expensive, is still not set up after more than a year and looks like it will not do half of the things the other system would have done. I was right, but the cheap and fast method was chosen and now it's going to bite everyone concerned in the ass.
Sound familiar?
Post a Comment
<< Home