VERTICAL FARMING

Dickson Despommier (2012) argues that “soil-based farming is not working and probably never did” (p. 259). As an alternative to soil-based farming, Despommier advocates on behalf of vertical and sustainable food-generating systems within the urban landscape. Despommier feels as though these systems are a potential solution to many global problems surrounding food accessibility, poverty, health, environmental destruction and more.

Traditionally, the term “vertical farming” has been used to describe a commercial building that is being used to produce edible biomass and/or food crops (Banerjee & Adenaeuer, 2014, Zeidler et al., 2013). However, Despommier (2011, 2012) offers a more liberal definition to include ‘stacked greenhouse technologies’. According to Daniel (2014), vertical urban farms must be characterized by a cultivation area that is “stacked” (i.e., operating on top of one another), “conditioned” (i.e., implemented in a controlled environment), and “urbanized” (i.e., operating within a city, reducing ‘food miles’).

City Farms Canada employs the more liberal definition of Vertical Farming because it offers unique opportunities for innovation and for accessing “niche” and underserved markets.

Why are Vertical Farms Important?

Despommier (2012) suggests that many advantages which are typically attributed to the traditional definition of vertical farming can also be achieved in controlled environment agriculture in single story greenhouses. Moreover, he suggests that “[a]pplying state-of-the-art controlled-environment agricultural technologies as an integrated system contained within a multistory building – vertical farming – the world could rapidly become a much better place to welcome in the next generation of humans” (Despommier, 2012, p. 262)

Urbanization is “the increase in the urban share of total population” (Martine & Marshall, 2007). Currently, there is global trend towards urbanization. That is, a disproportionate number of people are moving into urban or peri-urban areas. According to the United Nations Population Fund (formerly the United Nations Fund for Population Activities) the number of people living in urban centers will expand from 3.3 billion in 2008 to over 5 billion in 2030 (Martine & Marshall, 2007). Other projections have suggested that by 2050 the amount of urban land cover in developing countries will have quadrupled from their year 2000 land cover (from 300,000 km2 to 1,200,000 km2) (Angel et al., 2011). Innovative and alternative forms of agriculture must be adopted in order to accommodate this urban growth. Some recent research has suggested that the future of agriculture and the solution to feeding urban populations is technologically advanced vertical farms (Sivamani et al., 2013).

According to Despommier (2012) producing food in a controlled vertical farm environment offers the following advantages over traditional farming:

i. eliminates crop failure from adverse weather events
ii. eliminates agricultural runoff
iii. allows for restoration of damaged ecosystems
iv. eliminates the need for fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides
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vi. reduces “food miles”
vii. increases the control of food safety and security
viii. creates jobs
ix. offers opportunities to manage and/or purify wastewater

The Vertical Farm offers the most efficient return in terms of biomass per unit of area (Despommier, 2010; Zeidler et al., 2014). Figure 1 offers a conceptual comparison between the land required to produce food using traditional agricultural methods (e.g., mono agriculture) and the land required to produce the same amount of food using a vertical farming method.

Vertical farming is a point of convergence between local and global struggles and food security and food sovereignty.  At City Farms Canada, we are working hard to find these solutions that will provide nutritious, locally produced food for people all over the world.

References:

Angel, S., Parent, J., Civco, D. L., Blei, A., & Potere, D. (2011). The dimensions of global urban expansion: Estimates and projections for all countries, 2000–2050. Progress in Planning, 75(2), 53-107.

Banerjee, C., & Adenaeuer, L. (2014). Up, up and away! The economics of vertical farming. Journal of Agricultural Studies, 2(1), 40-60.

Daniel, P., (2014).  Contribution of vertical farms to increase the overall efficiency of urban agglomerations.  Journal of Power and Enegy Engineering, 2(), 82-85.

Despommier, D. (2010). The vertical farm: feeding the world in the 21st century. Macmillan.

Despommier, D. (2011). The vertical farm: controlled environment agriculture carried out in tall buildings would create greater food safety and security for large urban populations. Journal fürVerbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit, 6(2), 233-236.

Despommier, D. (2012).  Advantages of the Vertical Farm.  In Stamatina Th. Rassia & Panos M. Pardalos (Eds.), Sustainable Environmental Design in Architecture: Impacts on Health (259-275). New York: Springer-Verlag

Martine, G., & Marshall, A. (2007). State of world population 2007: unleashing the potential of urban growth. In State of world population 2007: unleashing the potential of urban growth. UNFPA.

Sivamani, S., Bae, N., & Cho, Y. (2013). A smart service model based on ubiquitous sensor networks using vertical farm ontology. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, 2013.

Zeidler, C., Schubert, D., & Vrakking, V. (2013). Feasibility Study: Vertical Farm EDEN.