The Vertcal Farm

[Pharaoh]

Run time: 02:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1clRcxZS52s   Posted on YouTube: January 05, 2010 By YouTube Member: GOODMagazine Views on YouTube: 64117   Posted on DU: July 12, 2011 By DU Member: Pharaoh Views on DU: 824

 
Cool Idea!

[robcon]

1. Why the hell would we use this in cities, as the video suggests?

Use land that is cheaper and less occupied, and more amenable to farming.

If this technique increases the yields per acre or per farmer, it will work (as long as it doesn't cost excessive amount to build the vertical farms.) It is idiotic to bring farming to the highest-value land in the country.

Currently 2% of the people in the U.S. feed the other 98%, and they export to many countries (and less than 2% of Americans are full-time farmers.) If this technique works on farms to increase yields, it has great promise. But putting farms in valuable densely populated cities is nonsense, IMO.

[Pharaoh]

2. Because thats where the people are and

transport costs will be very expensive in the future. Let alone a tractor plowing a field.

No doubt they should be federally subsidized and owned by the city's and not corporations. Time to take back food production from Monsanto.

[robcon]

4. Transport costs??? Do you know what it costs to run/load/unload a truck in Manhattan?

Off the charts idiotic idea, IMO.

If vertical farming works... use it on farms.

[WatsonT]

3. Using unoccupied blocks in cities

for this purpose and leasing out the lots as community or individual gardens would make some sense. People would pay a premium for that and it doesn't necessarily have to be economical in the long run.

I could see it working in that way.

But as an alternative to regular agriculture? No, it doesn't make sense.

Far better to push cities in to smaller and smaller footprints, increasing the density of housing/industry/commercial buildings and leaving more land undeveloped for farming.

[robcon]

5. Use it on unoccupied farmland. Smarter idea, IMO.

n/t

[WatsonT]

6. Not really

farm land is cheap. Building the infrastructure to maintain this sort of thing wouldn't be.

You could double your yields but if you do so by quadrupling your costs it's not a good idea.

[robcon]

7. Then you've defined vertical farming as a bad idea.

It's obvious that the cost of urban land/harvesting/getting rid of chaff/silos/barns/trucking, etc. would be WAY higher than using farm land.

Why would you plant crops in a high-rent area? Wouldn't that, by definition, raise the costs of production (aside from the off-the-charts costs of creating a 'building' strong enough to hold the weight of dirt, fertilizer, harvesting machines, etc.?)

[izquierdista]

8. Oh, just one thing....

Where does the light come from?

It's obvious that this city dweller has no idea at all how dependent crops are on the amount of daily sunshine they get. Yes, there is a certain amount of yield enhancement you can get by training certain crops to grow vertically instead of spreading out, but the optimum for that is a lot shorter than 5 stories.

[drokhole]

9. I want to live in this one...

http://www.archdaily.com/22969/dragonfly-vertical-farm-concept-by-vincent-callebaut/