technology foresight

Author Dickson Despommier, 2004, www.verticalfarm.com/essay.htm
and www.verticalfarm.com/plans.htm. Despommier is a
professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia
University in New York.
Note Vertical farming is a theoretical construct created by Prof.
Dickson Despommier and developed by his medical ecology
classes at Columbia University. He envisions a sustainable,
urban, indoor, multistory agricultural system that could
supplement or replace conventional farms. The vertical farm is
imagined as a food production center turning out crops, fish,
poultry, and eggs. Vertical farms are designed to feed the
population of urban centers using energy, materials, space, and
labor from within the city in a sustainable way.
Feeding growing cities poses significant problems
By 2050 world population will reach approximately 9 billion.
Insufficient farmland is available to feed this number of people
using current agricultural practices, and a combination of
increased agricultural productivity, increased landmass devoted
to agriculture, and improved distribution will be required to
provide the necessary food.
The rise in urbanization will exacerbate these challenges. By
2050, 80% of the world’s population will be urban. And while
cities occupy only 2% of Earth’s surface area they consume 75%
of its resources. Cities are supported by large areas of farmland
and they import food and export waste to landfills. This model
will become less sustainable as urbanization expands.
Conventional agriculture has significant negative impacts which
make it unsuitable to the challenges of the future.
Summer 2005/TF-2005-32N
The Vertical Farm
Reducing the Impact of Agriculture on Ecosystem Functions
and Services
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• It damages and destroys ecosystems.
• It creates runoff containing agricultural chemicals and heavy
metals that contribute to water pollution.
• It contributes to the spread of diseases at the interface
between agricultural and natural land.
• It exposes workers to significant health risks from chemicals,
disease, and traumatic injury.
Vertical farming could offer an alternative and improve the
quality of urban life, reduce the ecological impact of a city on its
surroundings, and help the environment by allowing farmland to
return to its natural state.
The technology of vertical farming
Assuming that 300 square feet of intensively farmed indoor
space is required to support one person, a 30- to 50-story food
production center covering a city block could sustain as many as
50,000 people using current technologies.
To achieve objectives of sustainability, environmental
friendliness, and cost-effectiveness, the vertical farm will need to
employ a number of technologies.
• highly productive indoor agriculture based on hydroponics and
aquaculture, with controlled temperature, atmosphere, and
artificial lighting
• water and nutrient generation by bioremediation of waste and
contaminated gray and black water from surrounding urban
areas
• energy generation from
– agricultural and human waste, in the form of methane
– solar panels
– wind
Issues that must be addressed in vertical farm design are plant
and animal disease management, pest management, noise,
pollution, and safety concerns. Current vertical farming designs
do not produce red meat or dairy products.
Potential advantages of vertical farming
Vertical farming could provide a variety of advantages. It could:
• supply adequate food for the world’s increasing population
• enable year-round food production without disruption by
weather or natural disaster
• enable healthier urban environments
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• provide new job opportunities in cities
• put abandoned urban space to use
• remediate black and gray water
• use human and agricultural waste to generate energy in the
form of methane
• reduce disease transmission in both urban and rural
environments
• reduce the use of fossil fuels for agricultural production and
distribution
• allow land currently farmed to return to its natural state and
ecological function
• eliminate agricultural runoff
• eliminate broad use of herbicides and pesticides while
providing a new role for agrochemical companies in optimizing
plant and animal nutrition
Implications
As the vertical farming concept is in its early stages,
opportunities exist for further proof-of-principle work on the
concept, including materials balance, process design, packaging
requirements, sanitation, and especially cost-effectiveness.
There is opportunity to pilot key technical elements of the vertical
farm concept where they already make economic sense. For
example, USE and Co. Ltd. grows leaf lettuce indoors under LED
light in a facility near Tokyo, using a process developed by
Cosmo Plant Co., Ltd.
(http://cooltech.iafrica.com/technews/397637.htm). In Japan,
meanwhile, a below-ground bank vault has been turned into
1,000 square meters of cultivation space and used to grow
tomatoes, lettuce, strawberries, and even rice in terraced
“fields.” (http://web-japan.org/trends/lifestyle/lif050317.html)
Creating a vertical farm with yields significantly greater than
those projected for current technologies will require advances in
biology, engineering, industrial microbiology, plant and animal
genetics, waste management, public health, architecture, and
urban planning.
Vertical farming would open up opportunities for suppliers of all
of the key technologies involved—especially hydroponics,
aquaculture, solid and liquid waste remediation, and methane
generation—as well as to designers and builders of the facilities.
Large-scale, sustainable, urban, indoor food production would
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create seismic change for the agriculture, food processing, food
distribution, food retailing, agrochemical, transportation, and
utility sectors, including massive shifts of jobs among sectors
and from rural to urban locations.
Extensive cooperation among industrial and government partners
would be required to establish vertical farming on a significant
scale in urban areas. Land would need to be identified, rezoned,
developed for vertical farming, etc.