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.
