Vocab Part 1

There is an idea that is growing popularity, of farming domestic plants and animals in city buildings! The idea is a sedentary way to transport food, without taking much space either. Dr. Despommier’s created the concept in 1999, with his students. The cultivated land and crops are all inside the building. We have the technology to have a sustainable and fertile land in the inside of a vertical farm, full with irrigation from the materials in the city. There is already a small scale of the farm, in downtown Seattle. It would create a third of the the food for the people that live there. The economic determinant is to be considered, however. Space is expensive and competitive in a city, a fruit will have trouble outbidding other buyers. The idea is a large technological advancement from our start as primitive farmers, which was a great discovery to us as nomadic hunters.

I think that this would be a great solution to the energy crisis if we would ignore the economic factor. We could cultivate so much more food from domesticated animals and plants in the area needed for an average farm, a ten story farm could have ten times the output. This could be an interesting way to make something like ethanol, or ease up the economy by supplying food more easily. It would also reduce the cost needed for transportation.

I think that if the benefits outweigh the costs, this would be a viable idea. For sure however, is that if we do not colonize another planet, or find ways to increase our space, eventually we would have to do something like this to still have land for our increasing population.