Fruits and Vegetables farming near you, right off Wall Street! What fanatics! The Vertical Farm (VF) is serious about it. Year round crops, no weather related crop failures, saving huge on transporting cost and lots of other interesting benefits. Advantages, listed from the site:
Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)- No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
- All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
- VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
- VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
- VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
- VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of evapotranspiration
- VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals
- VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping)
- VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
- VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
- VF creates new employment opportunities
- We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on earth
- VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
- VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical LDCs. If this should prove to be the case, then VF may be a catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for sustainable food production
- VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water and land for agriculture
What more could we ask for?
