So whenever I bring up the concept of
vertical farming, I usually get one or two different reactions. The
first reaction is for the person I'm talking to to say "Oh! You
mean like a vertical garden," which is somewhat along the lines
of what I am typically about to explain to them; but the other
reaction is more along the lines of a blank stare or a polite and
pleading smile. So I'm just going to start from the very bottom and
we can work our way up; and unfortunately the very bottom of the
story is probably the most sobering.According to some estimates we are looking at a world population that is growing faster than it ever has before with some 11 or 12 billion people projected to be living around the year 2100. This may seem like a harmless observation, or even a useful one at first; but it is pretty terrifying when we ask how we are going to feed all of those hungry mouths. We have a problem. And this is where we get to the idea that was mentioned at the very top and the potential solution to that problem, vertical farming. If you picture a typical rice farm today, you might think about a vast stretch of wet land with little green sprouts neatly planted in lines as far as your eyes can see. If you take that concept and instead cut the big swath of land into roughly equal sized portions and then stack those portions on top of each other, leaving enough room for the little rice plants to grow of course, and then you put this stack in a large skyscraper-esque greenhouse, then you have virtually grasped the basics of vertical farming.
So is this a doable thing? If so, why aren't we seeing more of it than we have? What are some of the drawbacks of doing something like this on a mass industrial scale, and what is the cost? I am sure these are just some of the many questions that you might be asking and I hope to answer all of them in the near future. For now, thanks for reading!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very relevant topic, therefore it piques my curiosity. I also think that along with overpopulation, there are other issues relevant to the necessity of integrating vertical farming. For example, the main usage of land across the Earth is agriculture. But what most of the "agricultural" land is utilized for is beef and dairy farming. If we could possibly use vertical farms to grow food for cows then we could save a lot of land.
I agree that vertical farming will be necessitated by overpopulation. I have read studies that say that once we cross 8 billion there will not be enough land to grow food for that amount of people. Vertical farming is most likely going to be used to feed the people of large cities. There would be little transportation cost and easy accessibility.