What is Digg?106 Comments
- ericjohnson0, on 07/15/2008, -1/+29I bet food isn't the only thing they would grow there...
- sClubDevin, on 07/15/2008, -0/+26I'm not a huge environmentalist, but this has to be really good for the environment, not to mention the cost of food. If my food is grown in Baltimore instead of somewhere in the midwest, the transportation costs could be entirely eliminated, resulting in absurdly cheaper food. The only guys who lose out are truckers.
- Veriander, on 07/15/2008, -5/+20I've really been behind this concept since I first heard of it. For the last 10,000 years we've been scraping the topsoil to grow plants. It's time for the 21st century agriculture revolution! Nuclear power to supply electricity for lights and pumps, genetically modified plants that thrive in 'Food Factory' environments. No pesticides needed because the buildings would be sealed from weeds and pest insects. Impervious to droughts.
Think of the renewal of the midwest prairie. All those thousands of square miles of tilled soil could return to a pristine state. - inactive, on 07/15/2008, -2/+16"All those thousands of square miles of tilled soil could return to a pristine state"
Yeah, all it would take is a couple hundred million new skyscrapers to replace 1/5 the farmland in Iowa. - inactive, on 07/15/2008, -0/+12Produce costs about 6 cents per pound to travel the roughly 1,500 miles from where it is grown to the average American. This is a trivial component of the cost of produce, so you claiming growing it in the city would make it "absurdly cheaper" is, well, absurdly ignorant. Now, guess how much a square block footprint skyscraper in downtown Baltimore costs compared to fertile farmland in Iowa at $2,000 an acre. Guess how much higher the taxes will be. Do you really think you can do anything in a major city that can approach the costs of a modern farm?
A semi-truck gets about 5 miles per gallon hauling a 45,000 pound load. A 1980 study says fresh produce in the US travels an average distance of 1,500 miles to the consumer *. Thats 300 gallons of diesel at $5 per gallon, so it costs $1,500 plus a trucker (25 hours at $40 an hour, or another $1,000). So we've paid $2,500 to move 45,000 pounds of food, or about 5.6 cents per pound.
* http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/ppp/food ... - phreak79, on 07/15/2008, -0/+10It's a really interesting concept and will be good to see how it develops when it's implemented in a few places around the world.
- ulmedas, on 07/15/2008, -0/+9I at least have a better idea of what is in them. and I don't trust food grown upstate next to the Hudson any more, nor do I truly trust in the 'organic' standards of the produce coming from Chile. I'll take my chances with backyard tomatoes. It surly cannot be any worse.
- ulmedas, on 07/15/2008, -0/+9I have a garden in my backyard in New York, and the food comes out just fine. Brilliant beats, super squash, bountiful basil, precocious peppers, elegant eggplant...every bit of it delicious.
I have several friends with small garden plots, and the food that they produce out is outstanding. There are many community gardens throughout the city.
Really, pollution isn't that bad here. Though there is a strange film on my teeth every morning after my bike ride to work, even on the days I brush them first...food for thought I suppose. - hamobu, on 07/15/2008, -0/+7I have been thinking about this ever since similar article appeared on Digg few months ago. Everyone can do this in their home on a smaller scale. You can buy indoor hydro-phonic gardens on the net and you can grow your own food in your home. These machines are lit by LEDs and use little electricity but they are a bit more expensive. If you have a spare room at your place of residence, you can grow your own vegetables.
I wonder what would it take for a person to start his own growing business in an urban area. In one room you could stack plants on the shelves and you would be able to to grow more in one room than you would in a piece of land of the same area. Being indoors, you do not have to worry about climate or pests. You might be able to offset the cost of electricity with solar panels (which you could wire directly to garden rather than the grid) and by capturing rain water. Watering could probably be regulated electronically. - Homerr, on 07/15/2008, -7/+13So the food from the first 25 stories will be laden with smog/pollution and above that will be organic?
- inactive, on 07/15/2008, -0/+5Nope.
- hamobu, on 07/15/2008, -1/+6Another misconception. People think 100 floor sky scraper would provide 100 times the area it sits on for growing. It is actually better than that. Plants do not need as much head room as people do, so you could possably get maybe 5 times more growing area than that.
- smurfsahoy, on 07/15/2008, -0/+5Yes, transport goes down, but a building with walls and floors and ceilings and artificial electricity powered light and so forth costs a lot more per acre than a big patch of dirt on the ground. It probably currently costs more overall, hence they aren't building tons of them yet. Yet.
- Cadenzah, on 07/15/2008, -1/+6Hint: Greenhouses
- TheUngod, on 07/15/2008, -3/+7Not a bad idea, but still not likely. If it costs about 100 Million dollars to build this thing and you get say, 10,000 acres total from top to bottom...that's still crap. You can get that same 10,000 acres in Nebraska for nothing and transport what you grow for far far cheaper. (these are all made up numbers but you get the idea).
- aklu, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4Everyone needs to stop thinking in today's terms.
Add 4 billion people to the planet and then imagine how much land in Nebraska will cost, let alone the cost of transportation. This idea (vertical farming) is one we need to be thinking about now. Not because it's needed today, but because we will need it tomorrow. - bioprez, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4while it is still economically expensive to implement this, i haven't heard one person comment on the health benefits of having fresh produce readily available in your city. Purchasing produce that is same day or day old is far more healthy than buying produce from a grocery store, as store bought produce is prematurely picked and transported, and is usually around 3 weeks old.
With store bought produce, not only does it contain less enzymes that help you digest the food, it contains less nutrients due to the fact that it is picked before it is optimally ripened on the plant. Having local produce is far more beneficial in terms of health benefits, and implementing this may have a windfall effect of people becoming healthier by eating local produce. That is why people always recommend buying local frown produce, as it is the most healthy for you.
Besides that, these farm buildings could eliminate all the dangerous pesticides and chemicals commonly used on farm grown plants, and there wouldn't be the threat of salmonella that we have today (salmonella comes from animal runoff that gets into the water supply on big farms, it does not come from plants themselves) - bioprez, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4good thinking, i agree with this. I know there does exist some indoor growing facilities, i know of one in Pittsburgh that grows sprouts, and is rather prosperous. You can walk in and get a fresh sprout wrap and they are delicious, not to mention extremely healthy as all the plant enzymes are intact and don't die due to transportation time.
- aklu, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4Maybe you hadn't noticed, but there aren't many jobs outside of the major urban areas. Those people making median income in the urban areas would be unemployed in the country.
- Rikkochet, on 07/15/2008, -2/+6Astounding alliteration.
- inactive, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4Pauliusuza, here's a nice little animation showing production of corn from 1900 to 2000. If you think we've significantly changed where we grow the bulk of our food since 1980, this should be enlightening for you. Food production is extremely dependent on climate, thats why oranges have always been grown in Florida and never in North Dakota.
http://www.nass.usda.gov/research/corn-1900-2000.h ... - bronxelf, on 07/15/2008, -0/+4The real problem is space. I have one of those hydroponic gardens and though it works just fine, in order to produce enough produce to really offset your visits to the grocery in terms of both quantity and variety, you'd need more space than exists in your average city apartment. Most people in urban areas don't have that kind of space to give up.
Perhaps a more realistic localized solution are more roof-access gardens in urban areas. - smurfsahoy, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3In all seriousness, I calculate about 63,000 sky scrapers the size of the Sears tower to replace 1/5 of Iowa farmland. Wow.
- bronxelf, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3NYC has a similar issue, since we import almost all of our consumables from outside city limits, and property is scarce. I've been a huge proponent of investigating this technology for a while now, and I'm glad to see it getting more air time.
- norman619, on 07/15/2008, -1/+4This is an old science fiction idea called an Archology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
I hope the technology is finally there to make these things a reality. - ilistenisee, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3many countries are developing urban style buildings that will allow farming on the rooftops, which i think it's a great idea. we'd have fresh veggies everyday :) + saving land.
- ashfish, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3The idea would actually be perfect for Hawaii as the majority of our produce is shipped in and the vacant lots here most times are too valuable to be converted to farm land. Or, the land is owned by one of the native Hawaiian trusts here and isn't going to be used for anything anyways. We have plenty of skyscrapers that can be gutted and refurbished to meet these needs and plenty of people in the construction industry right now just chomping at the bit for some work.
- CrushThemTorg, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3NY Magazine had an awesome article about this last year: http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/
Not that I'm dissing the NYT article, but I like promoting on the few causes I'm optimistic about. - hamobu, on 07/15/2008, -0/+3They could filter sewer water to water plants and provide fertilizer, and they could use solar panels and burning of their own plant waste to reduce their need for electricity. Some CO2 from local cars would also be absorbed by plants.
- republicker, on 07/15/2008, -1/+4Unless you test it at a lab your not gonna see all the toxins that are in it. Think of your tomato plants smoking a pack a day. On the other hand, home grown is always better and we all die somtime.
- hele, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Kind of. An arcology is a completely self contained and sustainable entity in which a society lives. A vertical farm is literally a farm in which a large amount of produce is grown within a relatively small building footprint.
While the idea of Arcologies has been around for quite some time, they are proving to be difficult to actually work out. See Sorelli's experiment in Arizona.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti
Vertical Farms do have a practical use in todays cities, however. - Chairboy, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Actually... it could be argued that as 'organic' simple means 'contains carbon', the vegetables exposed to the carbon-heavy smog would in fact be more accurately considered 'organic' than the pristine stuff up high.
It's an argument of semantics, wordplay, and borderline cleverness at best, but... there you go. - zangis, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2SimCity2000 :)
- studdenfadden, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2As long as you hire the lollipop guild to farm it. Oh, elevators, water mains, stairways, etc. also take up space in the core of the building. So, no, it would be less than 100 times the floor space.
- Scaryclouds, on 07/16/2008, -0/+2@pauliusuza
You do realize he was only talking about transportation, right? RIGHT? - AmusedToDeath, on 07/15/2008, -1/+3So you're saying there are some days you don't brush them? Gross.
- norman619, on 07/15/2008, -1/+3Sorry but no. I do not subscribe to the NYT yet I am able to access the article fine. Must be a user or browser issue.
- hamobu, on 07/16/2008, -0/+2To studdentfadden and coolermo. You can have normal floors in a farming building and you can stack plants onto shelves. You can even make moveable shelves to be able to stack more plants per room.
- dawnofdigital, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2i suppose you don't think that the farmers might lose out. surely they must all love the idea of moving into the city.
- smurfsahoy, on 07/17/2008, -0/+2Actually, I've done some more research, and due to being indoors, the vertical farms can produce about 5x as many crops per acre by controlling the climate and being resistant to drought, etc.
For lack of pests and natural disasters and chemically induced soil degradation, add in another factor of x2.
Lastly, crops don't need nearly as much ceiling clearance as humans do. You could have 3x as many stories in a building as for humans, easily.
=30x more efficient than my previous estimate
=Only 2,000 sears tower sized skyscrapers to equal 1/5 of Iowa. And all of them would be much cheaper than the Sears Tower, due to not needing nearly as much insulation, telecom, amenities, etc., and being built in more of a mid-rise way usually, and could be placed on much cheaper land (The people who want to put these in the middle of a city are dumb. The closer suburbs or industrial areas are fine.)
So let's say a little less than half the price per square foot, optimistically, and the efficiency equivalent of 3,000 acres (Sears tower x 30), that comes out to about $100,000 an equivalent acre.
Still too much, but maybe not after a major world population boom, in a supplemental capacity. - japandave, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2TheUngod,
Crunching theoretical numbers with absolutely no foundation is a dangerous way to do research. Research ideas before trying to sway people's minds with 'you get the idea' is a better course of action. I would be interested in a thorough cost analysis over time both economically (in one case- how many city-dwellers could be employed by this type of farm in another- what would be the output of these 10,000 acres over time versus a field in Nebraska where you have to rely on the will of the ever increasing unpredictable Mother Nature to provide water, stable temperatures and consistent sunlight.) and environmentally (for instance- how many kilotons of pesticides would not be unleashed into the environment over time?) This is actually a really grand idea despite any perceived or unperceived costs- and I hope to see to fruition in my lifetime.
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." Pope - smurfsahoy, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Uh, air filters? This is inside of a building, remember.
- WNW3, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2I dated a girl who only bought orgasmic vegetables. Damn that bitch was wack!
- WiretapStudios, on 07/15/2008, -4/+6Whatever keeps me insulated from bigoted nutcases such as yourself.
- ulmedas, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Smog is not that bad in most cities. It is no worse than, say, growing vegetables in the soil next to the not so clean Hudson river.
- ulmedas, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Unless food prices continue to soar and fuel prices for transporting said food continue to soar, which is quite likely. A little forethought will help prevent future scrambling.
We could all live like those people who bought SUVs and moved out into the new sub development forty miles from work and are now struggling to fund their commutes and crazy variable rate mortgage on their McMansions...
I would opt for a little forethought. - aklu, on 07/15/2008, -0/+2Catch rain water on the top of the tower. Store it in tanks, also at the top of the tower. Let gravity do the rest. No external energy source needed.
- inactive, on 07/15/2008, -1/+2Build as high as you want. This does not change the fact that you only get so much light per area of the land you build on, assuming your building is situated around other buildings of equal height. With lower light, you have lower yields, if your crops grow at all. And with the cost of construction and building materials these days (all of which BTW have a huge carbon footprint) there is no possible way to justify this economically, even if you could block other buildings taking their share of the light (shading yours).
And whoever proposed using solar cells to convert light to electricity to power grow lights, go hit yourself in the head with a tack hammer. - MongooseTE, on 07/15/2008, -1/+2How will they pollinate the plants?
- LawSchoolBound, on 07/15/2008, -0/+1This seems like a great idea for local grocery stores. Most of them have large, flat roofs. Why not grow vegetables, herbs and what not andthen sell them at your own store? It seems that by eliminating shipping costs you could provide incredibly fresh food for cheaper than average and still have a nice profit margin.
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