Skyfarming: Skyscrapers to Replace Flat Farms?

New York Magazine offers a look at "vertical farms", an energy-saving, land-saving food production strategy.


Columbia University's Dr. Dickson Despommier (www.verticalfarm.com) has been working on the vertical farm concept since 2001, and is now beginning to attract the attention of both scientists and investors.


Essentially, vertical farms propose 30-story buildings, each floor stacked to grow two to ten different crops.

Once operational, nothing would be wasted:

• Treated wastewater from the adjacent city is retreated for safety and used for irrigation.
• Pure water transpired by plants is condensed, collected, and either sold as drinking water or reused in irrigation.
• Solar collectors or windturbines collect environmental energy.
• Solar power feeds a "pellet power" production facility, recycling biowastes like corn husks and cobs, along with restaurant waste, into pellets. Pellets are then burned to operate a steam-driven electric plant.

Not limited to plants, such urban farms can also raise fish and poultry.


A few benefits of such structures:

• Can be built today, using current technology
• Each building removes thousands of acres of farmland from production
• Efficiently uses resources
• Virtually eliminates transportation expense for food
• Organic farming more feasible
• No weeds, insects, or plant viruses, so no need for GMO plants or pesticides

Using these vertical farms, thousands of acres of farmland could be returned to forest growth, supplying timber and helping reduce global warming.

Drawbacks? They won't be cheap to build -- approximately $200 million in current dollars -- and won't be cost-effective up front. Placing them where they're best sited, in urbanized areas, means relocating or redirecting urban development.

The first such tower may be built in Dubai, the oil-rich emirate in the Middle East which recently constructed an indoor ski resort and is presently constructing islands approximating the shape of all the countries of the world. Dubai has little to no arable land, little water (they're fed by desalinization plants), and plenty of money.

If you ask me, it's about time they put some of their cash toward something useful.

Further designs and information may be found on Despommier's website, www.verticalfarm.com.