Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms: Scientific American - The Diigo Meta page

• 20 Nov 09
  

  Michael T. Roche

  vertical farming

  • Farming is ruining the environment, and not enough arable land remains to feed a projected 9.5 billion people by 2050.
  • drastically
  • 9 more annotations...
  • • • Farming is ruining the environment, and not enough arable land remains to feed a projected 9.5 billion people by 2050.
    • drastically
    • Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock—an astounding agricultural footprint.
    • And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land—2.1 billion acres—if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist. To quote the great American humorist Mark Twain: “Buy land. They’re not making it any more.”
    • Clearly, radical change is needed.
    • Vertical farming could revolutionize how we feed ourselves and the rising population to come. Our meals would taste better, too; “locally grown” would become the norm.
    • engineers
    • urban planners
    • agronomists
• 08 Nov 09
  

  Jeff Johnson

  Growing crops in city skyscrapers would use less water and fossil fuel than outdoor farming, eliminate agricultural runoff and provide fresh food

  skyscrapers growing vertical farming future technology food population

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