Urban Farming Movement
Dec 3rd, 2009 by Dylan Jones
The growing movement of Vertical Farming in large cities, this trend is slowly growing and becoming realized as a potential eliminator of dependency on fossil fuels for food transport into world urban centres. By being able to produce viable food growth networks in cities, we lesser the dependency on large use fields that are both environmentally destructive and unsustainable. Vertical farming is still being developed but it many cases has been put into practical usage. A major difficulty for vertical farming is that is has not yet received government/high economy/corporate sponsorship which would give it the capital that would allow a real project to take place.
The future of city growth depends heavily on its abilities to be sustainable, with world prices of food, energy (including gas/oil/electricity) and raw materials rising the elimination of long distance transport is important. For instance many large chain restaurants (especially fast food) get most of their meats from South American cattle ranches. They do this because the low labour costs of SA farmhands and cattle ranchers translates into much lower food prices. However after the cattle is slaughtered it is shipped thousands of miles by truck, boat and train, this draws upon a very large amount of fossil fuels to power the machinery needed for transport. Growing food in cities close to the people eliminates the need for this transport, although obviously cattle cannot be raised and slaughtered in the middle of a contemporary urban settlement, crops can be. Raising the crops in the city in large vertical farms, eliminates the need for vast tracts of farmlands that take up acres upon acres of prime ranching land. With the produce being grown in the city and the cattle closer to home, people would be able to offset the labour cost competitiveness with elimination of expensive transport fees and costs.
This is the wiki definition of it
The website for vertical farming
Ecoworld article on vertical farming
This is a video on what is called the Omega Garden, a very interesting and cool idea on urban food production. Basically his project has allowed him to grow a very high percentage of food per hectare of urban land. The procedures he uses rotates the plants so slowly that even though they are grown upside down for certain time periods, the time they are the bottom allows them to fight gravity. This cylindrical hydroponic way to growing food allows urban farmers to grow without the need for sunlight or soil, most of the water is recycled from previously used waste water furthering the recycling process and reducing the waste a city produces. Although this system is far from perfect, it does require large amounts of electricity and it is very expensive, this innovative step towards eliminating large scale farming to feed cities is very important.
Ted Marchildon has now moved into creating home kits for everyday, every person use.The website link is below.
Finally comes education, educating people who are bound to an agricultural lifestyle is essential in continuing not only the globe’s food supply but also in reducing poverty and malnutrition.Educational centers all over the world train students to go out and volunteer with local native populations of many developing nations. The video below although poorly made and with a somewhat questionable background at least shows the very basics of education on agriculture with a native population in India, focusing on women the teachers show basic semi-arid growing techniques to maximize crop yield.
7 Responses to “Urban Farming Movement”
I am going to concentrate my comments on the last video in the post.
I find I need context. What is the purpose of the video? Who is showing it?
Notwithstanding, it opens up something that I think we have mentioned a few times through class this term, but never really tackled head on. That is the issue of training and education against themes of participation and postcoloniality. I see a fine line in providing needed training and education programs without following colonial trends as well as being truly participatory. It seems that so often the ‘Global North’ or ‘the West’ is bringing knowledge/skills to those who are deemed ‘ignorant’. Even in discourses of ‘partnership’ or ‘shared learning’ or ‘solidarity’ the simple fact can remain that those who know a more efficient way bring it to those who don’t. As we’ve seen in this class, this raises all kinds of problems…what are the legitimate alternatives?
I’ve seen a few stories about vertical farming before and think its a really interesting idea. I wonder what kind of effect this type of agricultural program would have on the global South. I see both benefits and potential issues. One benefit would be that we could grow more of our food locally, decreasing imports from less developed countries and therefore allowing them to focus on growing food for their own populations. This could decrease food prices in these countries and help in solving malnutrition and poverty. On the other hand, this would also mean less foreign investment and income for the farmers. Of course, vertical farming will have to be adopted by governments and city planners before we see the real outcomes.
Wow I am glad I didn’t do my commenting until the last minute otherwise I would have missed this post! It was is a very interesting idea and appears to be really relevant – at a time when the majority of the worlds population is living in urban communities and the effects of our addiction to fossil fuels are becoming increasingly evident – this is clearly an idea that we need to explore. One thing that I thought I would mention is that in focusing on how to fix our production methods, it is important not to forget that it is the nature of our consumption that is the core issue here. The west’s obsession with meat is an issue – especially the new trend for ‘grain fed’ steak, which requires not only the land and resources to raise the cattle but also to produce the grain. Another issue is the growing trend for bio fuels which I find morally repugnant, but I think we covered that in class.
In terms of development wouldn’t this lead to greater poverty between countries? I’m sure this type of planning is only available for developed countries in the world, because it needs a high rise and the equipment to perform such growing methods. What about those countries who are not developed? Most countries first stage of development is from agriculture and exporting their goods. If they take on this vertical farming method, as mentioned by Coral there will be less imports on raw goods leading undeveloped countries to remain that way.
Although the initiatives talked about in the first two videos have great potential as alternatives to current agricultural practices, therefore contributing to a solution to climate change, I am skeptical as to how they could benefit developing countries. For example, in the EU, net agricultural imports is less than net agricultural exports. This is because high tariffs on agricultural goods prevent developing countries from breaking into the EU agricultural goods market. Although EU is the world’s largest contributor of foreign development aid, they are obviously not helping poorer countries in terms of trade. This an example of how we can be easily mislead to believe that we are doing “good” and “helping” developing countries.
Nonetheless, as I mentioned before, vertical farming in urban centers is an excellent idea if one considers its environmental benefits. I guess there are two issues that are relevant to these videos: poverty & climate change. Finding a solution that suites both of these problems poses a huge challenge.
I think vertical food farming is an interesting idea, especially since, as the video mentions, the travel of food from farm to plate often spans great distances. I was trying to draw the connection though from this video and the theme of the class, particularly uneven development. Could vertical food farming be an extreme example of the way development grows only in places where there is already wealth and infrastructure? Interpreted from that perspective sustainable living through vertical food farming could only be afforded by some of the world’s wealthiest cities that could afford to build a thirty story building just for the growing of food.
On a separate thought, what if hypothetically vertical food farming became adopted, what would happen to all the farm land in the surrounding areas? Would farmers have to export them even further because the closest city has become self sustaining? Upon further consideration I think that vertical food farming is not necessarily the most effective way in solving issues of food travels. I think it is really dependent on the geographical context of the city and its accessibility to farm products. In the case that there are surrounding farms, what would be more effective is if people were more aware of the local, seasonal produce available in their region. That way, that way, exotic or out of season foods do not travel vast distances in order to reach the consumer’s plate, and local producers would be simultaneously supported.
I do not think that vertical farming is limited to highrises and skyscrapers as previously mentioned in a comment.
Personally, the idea that the vertical farming method will decrease the use of fossil fuels is considerably naive. Though, the application of this method in rural areas in the global South using hydroponic techniques perhaps could make a positive impact. I believe this because, as Harvey discusses sometimes, the land that is often used for agriculture is poor. Essentially, the new technique will bypass soil. I believe the use of highrises in urban centres is more of an explicit example of showing the value of growing the crops closer to the city core.