2023-09-28 18:00:00
Cities around the world are experiencing accelerated growth. Green land is regularly lost due to urbanization or its effects (such as rising sea levels or natural disasters) and population growth means more mouths to feed, so the agricultural and livestock industries are strained. . Considered by many as the solution, Vertical farming involves stacking crops verticallyusing the latest design and engineering technologies to grow more in less space.
In the case of Buenos Aires, as noted by the Directorate of Green Spaces and Trees of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires in conversation with Chequeado, “according to international recommendations, the amount of green space per inhabitant in a city is approximately 10 square meters. The City has a little more 6 metros squares of green spaces per inhabitant.”
Therefore, in addition to responding to the challenge of increasing green space and feeding the growing population, which is estimated to reach the 10 billion in 2050 At a global level, vertical farming could be the answer to many of the environmental problems generated by traditional agriculture, such as soil degradation, greenhouse gas emissions and massive water consumption, as we tell you in this Red note. /Action (where the history of this practice is covered).
A great example of innovation in vertical farming is the Urban Farming Office building by VTN Architects, located in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam). Its façade aims to reverse the city’s tendency to move away from its origins as a rainforest and creates a “comfortable microclimate throughout the building, filtering sunlight and purifying the air,” as its architects explained.
In addition to the already mentioned benefits that plants have on the environment by themselves, this practice can imply another secondary benefit: reduce the use of air conditioning. Vegetation helps prevent overheating of spaces and, in general, works as a thermal mattress, cooling the interior, as explained by the architects of Husos (who put these benefits at the service of a small apartment in Madrid).
In South Korea, these projects even reached restaurants; N.Thing company builds smart farms, and directly serves customers at Sik Mul Sung restaurant in Seoul. There, a glass grow room allows customers to “experience the processes of growing, harvesting, cooking and eating, all in one place.” With this small-scale farming method, restaurants can guarantee their customers a local and low-emission product.
Thinking about the benefits of vertical farming on a larger scale, the microbiologist and professor of Public and Environmental Health at Columbia University Dickson Despommier commented that “Within the next 40 years we could have 3 billion more people to feed. And if you look for the land where those foods are going to come from in terms of traditional agriculture, you won’t find it. “So the biggest problem we face as humanity is: where is the food for the next 3 billion people going to come from?”
Not everything is hopeless if we think that a vertical agriculture building The size of a block and 30 stories high could provide enough nutrition to feed up to ten thousand people. Perhaps the solution is not in front of us, but above our eyes.
This content was originally published in RED/ACCION and is republished as part of the ‘Human Journalism’ program, an alliance for quality journalism between RÍO NEGRO and RED/ACCION
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