Growing Up:
Vertical Farming
by Wendy Priesnitz
“The age of the 3,000 mile Caesar salad is coming to an end.”
~ James Howard Kunstler
 Population growth, climate change, peak oil, and looming water
shortages are, according to some agricultural researchers, rapidly reducing the
amount of usable farmland worldwide. Add to that the trends towards urbanization
and local food, and you have a burgeoning urban farming movement, examples of
which are regularly covered in this magazine. You also have a recipe for growing
up, in which a new generation of urban vertical farmers is involved.
From the hanging gardens of Babylon to trellised veggies growing
in small garden plots and “green walls” designed to purify indoor air, people
have long enjoyed growing plants vertically. But when we wrote about the
phenomenon of vertical farming in Natural Life’s September/October 2006 issue,
it was just a dream in the minds of researchers such as Dickson Despommier, a
professor at Columbia University’s Department of Environment Health Sciences. But now, vertical farming – although still in its infancy –
is taking its place as part of the intensive urban agriculture movement.
If Despommier has his way, food production will be located in
high-rise structures and utilize hydroponic or aeroponic (nutrient-laden mist)
cultivation systems, which use up to ninety percent less water than conventional
techniques. Waste will be recycled and water will be recaptured. As well as
conserving water, vertical farming allows for the reclamation of farmland.
Despommier estimates that for every indoor acre farmed, ten to twenty outdoor
acres of farmland could be allowed to return to their original state – mostly
hardwood forest.
While not in a high-rise, vertical farming is being showcased at the Botanical
Gardens at the Paignton Zoo Environmental Park in Devon, England. In September
of 2009, it opened a high-density vertical farm using technology called VertiCropTM, produced by Valcent Products Inc. The system was chosen by Time magazine as
one of the fifty best inventions of 2009. The Curator of Plants and Gardens for
the Zoo, Kevin Frediani, says the technology will allow them to grow more plants
– fruits, herbs, and leaf vegetables – in less room, using less water and less
energy, thereby reducing food miles and their annual bill for animal feed. In
addition, a half million visitors a year will be educated about vertical
farming.
Chris Bradford is President and CEO of Valcent. He describes the growing system
(pictured above) as “trays on a looped dynamic conveyor belt and automatic
feeding stations to grow plants efficiently. It can be adapted to the needs of
vegetable, herb, fruit, and flower producers.” He says that it can increase
production volume for field crops up to twenty times over but requires as little
as five percent of the normal water supply and, under proper management, can
eliminate the need for pesticides.
Vertical growing systems like VertiCrop are being used in commercial greenhouses
in order to maximize the use of space and water. They include large,
high-efficiency hydroponic greenhouses throughout England and The Netherlands,
and in the Arizona desert. There is also a project in Santa Rosa, California
where developer Syamak Taromi found himself in the middle of a housing crisis
with ten acres destined for a seniors’ housing facility. Instead, his son and a
friend used some old greenhouses on the site to create a sustainable urban
agriculture company selling lettuce and
herbs at local farm markets and to local restaurants; they hope to expand into San
Francisco and integrate vertical farming into apartment buildings.
Stacking these vertical growing systems on top of each other in high-rise
buildings presents engineering challenges. And critics say such farms would be
prohibitively energy-intensive and therefore expensive and unsustainable.
Nevertheless, that’s the idea behind Dickson Despommier’s vertical farm concept:
a thirty-story crop powerhouse the size of a Manhattan block that he says could
produce enough food for fifty thousand people. Despommier recently told the
media that constructing a five-story farm, taking up one-eighth of a square city
block, would cost twenty to thirty million dollars. At least one New York
bureaucrat has expressed interest in creating a pilot project in that city.
Although there are proposals for high rise farms in a variety of cities, and no
lack of futuristic looking architectural drawings, it seems fitting that perhaps
the most interest has been generated in the Middle East, specifically in Dubai,
home of the world’s tallest building. In January of 2010, Valcent Products
presented its vertical farming system at The Dubai Forum: “Architecture for
Sustainable Societies,” marking the opening of the Burj Dubai skyscraper. So, if
you live in a large city, the days are definitely numbered for that 3,000-mile
Caesar salad.
Wendy Priesnitz
is the editor and co-founder of Natural Life Magazine. A journalist with over 40 years of experience, she is also the
author of 13 books.
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