Image Credit: 8 Minute Interview
Dickson Despommier: There’s no reason in the world why we can’t get our food manufacturing and consumption habits to match with the other parts of the natural world that we ourselves evolved from.
Dickson Despommier is a microbiologist at Columbia University. He’s talking about the idea of ‘vertical farming’ in city buildings. That’s growing produce, even fish and poultry, in vertical greenhouses – skyscrapers that feed people – each designed as a self-sufficient ecosystem.
Dickson Despommier: I think vertical farming is key to supplying us with food and to reusing the wastes that are created after consuming food to supply the energy and the water that’s necessary in order to actually make these things work.
Sewage would be heated and pressurized to separate it into water and carbon, which would fuel incinerators to power lights and machinery. While no one has yet built a vertical farm, Despommier has estimated that with just a little land, these skyscraper-farms could feed a lot of people.
Dickson Despommier: For every 50,000 people living in an urban center, they would require a building one square New York City block in footprint and thirty stories high.
Despommier expects China and Holland to build the first vertical farms within two to three years. In addition to saving on transport by making produce just a few blocks away, ecosystems beyond the city limits could heal as regular farms go ‘wild.’
Dickson Despommier: In essence, what you’re doing is saying, here’s a way that we can replant the trees that were taken away to make room for the farms. If we have the trees back then we can start sucking up CO2 from the atmosphere, and at the same time we can have our food. I know it sounds rather idealistic at this point, but it seems to be solving two major problems all at the same time.
It’s estimated that the greenhouses can be made to use only 10 percent of the water and five percent of the land needed by farm fields.
Our thanks to:
Dickson Despommier
Columbia University
New York, NY
Photo Credit: Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier
With such a revolutionary idea being discussed here, it’s hard to believe that it only gets a 1 minute spot on the radio on Sunday morning, with a quick reference to this website for “more information”. On this page, I simply find that exact report mirrored here with less than 400 words, most of which are direct quotes from only one source. Though you thank your subject expert, you give no footnotes to his research, or reports on the issue, or any realistic way to learn more. I think “journalists” these days are too used to just phoning it in and have forgotten what it really means to “report” on something. Where’s the corroboration? Where’s the follow-up? Not to mention, the simple fact that this report lacks any detail on these farms, such as who would build them & profit from them. How would they specifically be self-supporting, when the waste matter could only provide about 1-10% of the electrical consumption needed to run the sewage facility, the grow lamps, humidifiers, etc.
Come on, Jorge, you didn’t get that journalism degree for nothing. Try using it.
did the first commenter never hear of “Google”?
Earth & Sky does little radio snippets that give nonspecialist listeners an overview of new developments in science and technology. That’s all it’s ever been intended to do, and it’s done it extremely well for almost two decades now.
The radio spots specifically give the url, and the text version on the website clearly shows the person’s name and affiliation. There are links to additional coverage.
It’s ironic that the first commenter complained about “phoning in” the reportage, but doesn’t seem to be all that interested in doing any digging or going to any effort to learn more. The commenter seems to want everything spoonfed.
That’s one of the subtle things that this website does—it encourages people to exercise their brains to find out more about the material. it makes us think and learn how to learn about things for ourselves.
Terrell, thank you!
C. Pierson, be sure to listen to the 8-minute interview, too!
Best to you both,
Deborah
Deborah, thanks for the information. As for the comment from my pundit there, that just reminds me of when I was a kid and would ask my Mom a question and she would just say “look it up”. Should all of our dictionaries just have entries that say “See Google.com”?
To all 4: Google is not the last resort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
Why shape a vertical farm like a pyramid? Wouldn’t a “donut” shape be better? Would you get more light to the area in the middle? or would it just be a good gag for Homer Simpson?
I too would have liked to have heard more than just a snipet. However, if “this” particular show on NPR only does short skits, I think it should go some where else where more time can be taken for it. I my self have thought of planting fruits and vegetables on top of buildings such as apartment complexes and on work buildings, but the thought never accord to me to do some thing like this… of course I could not afford to do some thing like that anyway so the thought probably never really occured to me in a serious way.
Regardless, I am not sure why it is in a pyramid shape either, unless they were just trying to look fancy and or because they used a comment of “There’s no reason in the world why we can’t get our food manufacturing and consumption habits to match with the other parts of the natural world that we ourselves evolved from.” Or maybe because the shape would provide more natural light from different angels… not really sure, but I am sure that with artificial light you could make it look any way you want it to look, hopefully not retarded or an eye sore.
However, I am not sure why the US does not give this a shot. I am sure some rich person could put up the money and the land could be bought or borrowed and we could see how helpful this could actually be. Or are we afraid that this would take away from the average farmer or make food “too” easily available and thus cheaper than what people want them to be… Why charge for food when people can get it for free or very cheap, unless you take away the equation of enough food for every one to begin with?