Vertical Farms, often derided as a pipe dream that'll never happen... ARE HERE

[txlibdem]

What exactly is a vertical farm? In its current form it is the brainchild of Dr. Dickson Despommier. Think of a vertical farm as being like dozens of huge greenhouses stacked on top of one another. It's a skyscraper that has been designed to grow food instead of cubicle jockeys.

Learn more about Vertical Farms at http://www.verticalfarm.com/ -- lots of artist renderings of what a full-size Vertical Farm might look like, lots of videos, an essay that explains the concepts far better than I ever could. Recommended reading!

Are these Vertical Farms just a fantasy that will never happen? Am I off dreaming in La-La Land? Not as of this year. There are now vertical farm prototypes in the UK, Japan, Korea, and Holland. Two are planned in the USA as well.

The Rise Of The Vertical Farm

6/19/2011 3:33:58 PM

The concept of the vertical farm arose in my classroom in 1999 as a theoretical construct as to how to deal with a wide variety of environmental issues. It has been eleven years since that idea was carried forward by 106 of my graduate students. Today, I am pleased to share that several vertical farms have been erected between 2010 and the present. The first examples are mostly prototypes and are located in Japan, Korea, Holland, and England. I know of at least two more in the planning and fund-raising stages. Both of these are in the United States. The advent of such ambitious projects, given the short time between the emergence of the concept to operational prototype is astounding, to say the least. I personally visited the one in Seoul, Korea this year, two months after it opened (March 2011). It is owned and operated by the Korean government and the building’s supervisor, Dr. Min, informed me during my visit that the project was begun as the direct result of learning about the concept of the vertical farm at the 2008 Seoul Digital Forum, at which I spoke. Their eye-catching building is three stories tall and is designed to test various aspects of farming in a controlled environment on multiple floors. Lighting and automation are high on their list of things to work on. They are growing mainly leafy green vegetables using high tech LED lighting, and they want to begin indoor aquaculture, as well. Next to the VF is a much larger, newly built seed bank building (Agrobiodiversity) that stores all varieties of crop seeds and native Korean plants. Seed viability testing will be facilitated by the vertical farm. This is an ideal secondary use for the concept and the Korean government should be heartily congratulated for their wonderful efforts.

The vertical farm in Kyoto, Japan (www.Nuvege.com) is housed in a 4 story quanset hut-like building, the rough size of a 747 hangar (2851 square meters) on 4780 square meters of land. Inside, there are many examples of automated growing systems being tested. I have not had the pleasure of visiting that facility-yet.

PlantLab (www.plantlab.nl/4.0) is located in Den Bosch, The Netherlands. It is currently under construction and is based on a smaller prototype that has been up and running for several years. Everything is grown by LED lighting, and they claim that their experiments, using a wide variety of LED fixtures, give a 3X increase in plant yield using precisely controlled frequencies of light in the visible red and blue spectrum. I have no knowledge as to when they will finish their construction phase and go into full production. All growing will be indoors with no natural light sources. In addition, they are putting it three stories underground, making PlantLab the world’s first and perhaps only “up-side-down” vertical farm!

A demonstration vertical farm of five stories is under construction in Manchester, England. It takes advantage of an abandoned warehouse and the designers plan to raise poultry in addition to the standard variety of indoor vegetables and fruits. I will have the pleasure of speaking at the opening of their vertical farm at the Manchester International Festival this July 17, 2011.

http://www.verticalfarm.com/blog?169

These are prototypes meant to test the concept so I expect a lot of experimentation with the actual mechanics of how to grow the most food in the least amount of space, It's an exciting time for me because I've been following the updates on Vertical Farms for years.

[robcon]

1. I'd love to see a picture. I hope it works out, and increases yields..

n/t

[txlibdem]

5. Yes, it definitely does increase yields

Because the plants will be grown hydroponically there is an automatic 3x to 30x increase in yields.

Then you add the 3rd dimension: stacking the plants to increase yields even more. Some plants grow taller like vine tomatoes and some, like lettuce or cabbage never grow more than a foot tall (roots not included) so there will be a different answer depending on which crop you're talking about.

There are several companies that have multi-level hydroponic systems that increase yields many times over.
1.) "In trials the unit increased some crop yields by up to 20 times the normal production volume and only required 5% of the average water used in conventional growing conditions."
http://www.valcent.net/s/Home.asp

2.) "Consumers are increasingly demanding high quality, locally produced food that is free of pesticides and other chemicals. TerraSphere designs and builds super-efficient vertical farming systems that grow a variety of crops in pollutant-free environments. The technology is contained, which means crops can be grown year-round in any location, and at considerably higher yields than traditional growth methods. The result is an abundance of fresh, cost-competitive produce."
http://www.terraspheresystems.com/index.php/why-vertical-farming

3.) http://www.aerofarms.com/why/technology?gclid=CK2G8vDX_KkCFdMn2godVg0GbA

Another poster had a couple links as well. The prototype vertical farms built around the world may use one or more of these systems or they may try to invent something on their own. It'll be interesting to follow their progress.

[WingDinger]

2. Why reinvent the wheel?

http://volksgarden.com/
http://omegagarden.com/

[Terry in Austin]

3. How does the EROEI work out?

A farm plot requires an input of X number of human-supplied BTUs of energy to output F amount of food;

A high-rise farm of the same capacity requires an input of Y number of human-supplied BTUs of energy to output the same F amount of food.

The interesting question: is Y less than X?

[txlibdem]

4. Answered at the links in the OP

[Terry in Austin]

7. Apparently not

They've got a very interesting technology there, but it doesn't look like they're too focused on energy ratios. Maybe later.

It did set me to craving a nice big salad, though.

:9

[txlibdem]

11. Hard numbers are not yet available (EROI)

There are far too many variables. That is why 5 nations have built their prototype vertical farms only 3, 4 or 5 stories high instead of the 30 to 50 story buildings that would really make it profitable/useful/viable. It'll take years of testing different methods for different crops, etc., etc. I hope the USA goes ahead with the two vertical farm prototypes planned for us, but with the rampant idiocy here there's no telling what will happen.

Meanwhile, may I suggest a Youtube search for hydroponic vegetable growing or vertical farm.

[joshcryer]

24. I don't think you need hard numbers, just the inefficiency of geoagriculture.

Even though no "energy investment" is "lost" while wasting more than 90% of your water, the long term social impact is part of the energy equation. You use up the Great Midwest Aquifer (depleted in about 25 years tops), the generations beyond that are going to have to spend copious amounts of energy to get fresh water. So, you use 95% less water, you wind up stretching out that resource, if not restoring it completely.

I would not find any EROI study credible if it didn't take into account factors like that.

[txlibdem]

25. Yes, dirt farming irrigation takes 67% of the groundwater used each year - sink holes also

Aquifers are being depleted worldwide and that is part of the concern of future water shortages. Those costs should rightly be accounted for in any comparison of EROI versus Vertical Farms.

Correct me if I am wrong but aquifer depletion is also the cause of sink holes in some areas so the damage due to soil subsidence and sink holes should rightly be partially charged to dirt farming agriculture as well.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wuir.html

********************************************************
Typical activities that can lead to sinkholes are:

* Decline of water levels - drought, groundwater pumping (wells, quarries, mines)
* Disturbance of the soil - digging through soil layers, soil removal, drilling
* Point-source of water - leaking water/sewer pipes, injection of water
* Concentration of water flow - stormwater drains, swales, etc.
* Water impoundments - basins, ponds, dams
* Heavy loads on the surface - structures, equipment
* Vibration - traffic, blasting
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/sinkholes/10637/what_causes_a_sinkhole_/554362
*********************************************************

[joshcryer]

8. Much less, geoagriculture is highly inefficient.

Night time respiration of CO2 means that plants lose 33% of the energy they absorb in the daytime. Hydroponics can grow food 24/7, plants don't need sleep and do fine without it. If you look at the actual energy used to deal with geoagriculture, such as the manufacture of fertilizers, it's obvious that vertical gardens are far more efficient. Geoagriculture allows nutrients to drain away and toxify our streams, whereas such is not the case with hydroponics, what is used is used, there's no waste.

[txlibdem]

10. Greenhouse hydroponics versus dirt farming outdoors... you called it

I completely forgot that plants can do without night time. Hopefully, one of the 5 prototype vertical farms will include that in their testing regime.

Great post! Thanks.
:yourock:

[meow mix]

14. i disagree with not allowing for a short night period.

they like it, and are healthier for it imo =)

[txlibdem]

16. some plants want a little dark time (2 hours is good) but some need none at all

That's what is so interesting about vertical farms. So much to learn and so much experimenting needs to be done to make them as efficient as possible. But rest assured that even with today's greenhouse growing techniques a vertical farm would still use only 5% of the water and between 1/3rd and 1/30th the land, and usually 0% of the pesticides and herbicides as compared to outdoor dirt farming.

[The Croquist]

18. You make a good point regarding water usage however...

Where are you getting the water from? NYC water has been treated with chlorine. Maybe you can catch the rain water or Hudson river water (assuming their clean enough) but it might not be that easy to get it there. The city is unlikely to run underground pipes considering it's broke but then it's not likely to subsidize this construction anyway.

There will be a need for a bit of pesticides and herbicides to eradicate occasional infestations but it will be much less then is currently used.

I looked up the concept of 24 hour light and got mixed results. I remember learning that they need dark but I think that was when I was in college from a book called "A Child's Garden of Grass". I never really got that stuff to grow either.

[txlibdem]

20. The water has to be filtered... every hydroponic farm does so

They are not going out of business so the costs of filtering must not be too onerous, probably due to the fact that a vertical farm needs only 5% of the water that a dirt farm needs to produce the same amount of edible crops. Between Canada, the US and Mexico there are about 500,000 acres of greenhouses operating right now... profitably.

Vertical farms also mean jobs for the local area. Each crop needs to be tended by workers, always watching for dead or diseased plants that need to be immediately destroyed to avoid an outbreak. And most greenhouse operations hire staff to do the actual harvesting and packaging of the produce. With a 30 story vertical farm, there will be a fair amount of workers needed year round because as the crops are harvested new seeds are being started to replace them.

Plus the maintenance of the building systems, etc. It would be a good work environment because there is almost never any need to use pesticides/herbicides; only on the rare occasion that something enters the protected environment of the vertical farm.

Here's an example of growing hydroponic lettuce: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHBhyqowSEc --notice the number of workers just handling the plants, then times that by 30 and add a few dozen more for behind the scenes maintenance work. It's a job creation engine when compared to "big ag" farming where you have two or three workers using huge machines and tending hundreds of acres at a time.

[joshcryer]

21. Chlorinated water is trivial to treat, I don't know about flourine.

Chlorine just needs to sit in a bubble bath, the chlorine will evaporate quickly. :)

I've dabbled in hydroponics, it's remarkably simple, and it works well even in flourinated water, but I don't know if the plants absorb it or not.

[The Croquist]

26. I concede on the water issue

If the 5% figure is anywhere near accurate you can collect rainwater for months or a year plus during construction. After the initial start, rain water should certainly supply enough replacement water.
I don't know about the filtration taking out chlorine but sunlight certainly does. I also use tap water to water my garden when I need to and it seems to work fine but from a volume standpoint there is no substitute for rain water. In this case there shouldn't be a volume issue at all although I would overbuild the storage tanks because, in a nasty drought, the farms will be cut off of city water before the residents of NY.

Swimming pool diatomaceous filters take out some bacteria but not chlorine. I'm guessing that they are cheaper then more exotic methods. They have to be. I use one on my swimming pool and I'm cheap.

notice the number of workers just handling the plants, then times that by 30 and add a few dozen more for behind the scenes maintenance work. It's a job creation engine when compared to "big ag" farming where you have two or three workers using huge machines and tending hundreds of acres at a time.

I can't disagree with this statement more. There is nothing inherently good about a job creation engine.

The key is skilled labor not unskilled labor. Paying allot of people minimum (or below minimum) wage is not going to help. Paying them a "living wage" is going to either drive up the cost of food or force government subsidies.

In 1870 70-80% of US workers worked on farms. Today 2-3% are farm workers. 70-80% means fewer teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists and dozens if not hundreds of other skilled professions. It means a lower standard of living and shorter life expectancies. Even if you double the amount of farm workers that's not going to help the US economy. Lots of that work could have been done by robots. Robots are why cars are so superior to what they were 30-40 years ago.

[txlibdem]

29. Skilled jobs with vertical farms

You saw the video correctly but that video did not show what is going on behind the scenes: the Hydroponic Agriculturalist is a degreed position and he or she will need to train at least two assistants per crop to monitor the fertilizer mix, plant growth and health, etc. One of the Hydroponic professionals will be needed for each floor or perhaps every two floors of the Vertical Farm. Those are not unskilled labor positions, it is a specialized technology and whatever you know about growing a plant in dirt is totally not applicable to hydroponics so a "regular" ag degree may not suffice.

Somewhere in the vertical farm there needs to be computer technicians (the fertilizer mixing system is computer controlled), electricians, plumbers for all the water pipes, for the vertical farms that recycle their plant waste into biofuels to provide some of the heat needed for growing, etc. Plus probably a lot more that I can't even think of right now.

Other skilled and unskilled workers would be the ones who stock and man the food sales part of the vertical farm. Some envision a grocery store on the ground floor of the vertical farm and I am not opposed to the idea: zero petroleum used to ship or deliver the produce.

[joshcryer]

23. If I recall correctly flowering plants need a night cycle to know when to "flower," but otherwise...

...as far as I know many of the plants we eat don't need it. I could be wrong on that count, but the hydroponics / vertical garden stuff I've read suggested to me that they don't. And there's always the possibility of selective breeding for good healthy plants that do good without it.

[joshcryer]

22. We're talking industrial farming here, why not force 'em to grow until they give out? ;)

OK, so you want night rested plants, I'm sure there'd be a market for that, but otherwise we should go after the most efficient plants we can, go back to good old selective breeding for that. Nighttime energy is cheapest, let them "sleep" in the day time. ;)

[Cereal Kyller]

6. HtR

Happy to Rec.

[txlibdem]

15. thank you

[Nihil]

9. K&R - thanks for posting! (n/t)

:toast:

[The Croquist]

12. What about the economics?

I looked at two of your links and neither mentioned costs. About a year ago or so there was another post regarding a 15 million dollar, 5 story project in Detroit. I can't remember the square footage of the farm land but it was less then an acre. I doubt these do either. There is plenty of land near cities to farm the traditional way. Then there is the power used by the lights, fans and water circulation pumps. About the best I saw was a lack of fuel costs for the 10 - 50 miles into the cities. That is nothing compared to the cost of building these structures.

It makes no sense economically.

[txlibdem]

13. That isn't how our food gets to the store at all.

New York City gets its lettuce flown in from California. Speaking of New York City, there are enough empty acres owned by the government to build enough vertical farms to feed the entire population of the city, not using a single inch of privately owned land (which is expensive in NYC). Here in North Texas, most of the land is unusable for farming due to the temperature and a shortage of potable water or because it's been turned into apartment complexes or housing developments. Everything in the grocery store here comes from Central or South America, Mexico or California.

In most parts of the world the weather does not allow for growing the crops we need to eat all year round. Lettuce bolts to seed if the average temperature goes above 70 degrees F. Citrus fruits die if the thermometer drops below freezing.

It's a fair question to ask about the economics. That's why 4 nations (5 if the USA builds the two slated for here) are building prototype Vertical Farms; to test the many different hydroponic systems available for the express purpose of finding out which systems work best for which food crops. There won't be one single answer.

[The Croquist]

17. NYC can't possibly feed it's current population of 8,175,133.

As of 2007 there were 922,095,840 acres of farmland in the US. That works out to about 3 acres per person. Now we export allot of food and convert allot of corn to ethanol so lets halve it to 1.5 acres per person.

NYC is 305 sq miles or 193,200 total acres. I have no idea how much is owned by the city and they are willing to farm. I'm guessing that parks are out. Let's say 10%. 10% of 193,200 is 19,320 acres for a population of 8,175,133 or about 432 people per acre.

The numbers just don't add up let alone the construction costs or the energy demand.

You may be able to justify summer lettuce but how much energy will the air conditioning cost? Winter lettuce and spring would me easier.

Tomatoes could be done possibly year round. As long as you keep them 33 degrees or warmer you should be OK and I doubt sealed unheated buildings in NYC get below freezing.

I can't imagine citrus working at all. I'm winging it but I can't imagine that the yield per sq foot would be significant. The Florida trees are planted with plenty of room and they average about 9-10 meters (27-30 feet) in height. That's allot of headroom per plant let alone the gap you have to leave between the plant and the lights. Heating / cooling shouldn't be an issue.

Wheat and corn are simply out of the question. They are simply too cheap to grow this way. I've known many people who have grown corn once but I can't think of any that have grown it regularly.

I've been gardening for 25 years and I can't imaging getting the increase in yield that the article is talking about. I don't care about hydroponics, 24 hour sun or great nutrients. From memory I think one of the articles stated a 3-30 times increase in yield. I can possible see 3 times but 30 times? I just don't see where there is room.

[txlibdem]

19. You're a gardener so you know what makes healthy dirt, and that healthy dirt = productive plants

I used to tinker with gardening in the back yard until I became disabled so I'm not claiming any great expertise but I think we both know that good dirt is alive with organic matter and a lot of helpful fungi and organisms. Now compare that to what the "big ag" farms are doing. Before planting, they spray herbicides and pesticides to kill off the grass, weeds and the native plants whose seeds may have been blown or transported by birds onto the field. Then they either till the soil, exposing it to massive erosion, or use the no-till method where only a thin slice is made in the ground and pour on the fertilizers. After they seed they pour on the water and fertilizers and maybe some more pesticides. These big farms use 62% of all fresh water resources used each year according to the USGS (ref: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wuir.html) Pesticides are used again and again on these crops until just a couple of weeks before harvest. So when you bite into a "big ag" tomato you notice two things: 1. it tastes like cardboard because they picked it while still green so they could insert it into the huge food distribution system, and 2. it is laced with pesticides. Google "the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables" sometime to see which of the foods you probably love to eat are the highest in pesticide content. They don't care for the soil, all they do is pour enough petroleum based pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers to make the crop harvestable. That's not how to care for the land, nor is it how to grow fresh produce that contains all the nutrients and minerals that our bodies need.

Your post has so many questions, I can't answer them all. Some of them are unanswerable at this time because the vertical farm prototypes have just come online this year, 2011. That is why you build a prototype; so you can tweak the design and try different things till you get it right (or at least good enough to make it commercially viable).

Let's take New York. You guessed that 19,320 acres are available. I think the answer is something like 47,000 acres in the New York City area including all boroughs. But maybe it could work with less. The inventor of the vertical farm, Dr. Dickson Despommier says that a 5 acre plot (apparently the size of a city block in NYC) can grow as much produce as 2400 acres of farmland, use only 5% of the water needed, use only a fraction of the fertilizer and almost never use any herbicides or pesticides. We first divide 19,320 by 5 and then multiply by 2400 to find the total effective acreage. And we get 9,273,600 --which is close to the 1.5 acres per person you stated in your post. So perhaps there is room for some small farmers even with all of those vertical farms providing certain crops year round.

ref: http://www.verticalfarm.com

[The Croquist]

27. I hope you don't think I'm a great gardener

I gets lots of tomatoes, Cucumbers and hot peppers but my green peppers suck. Last year the deer reached over and loved my pole beans but I don't consider that a good thing. I tried growing lettuce one year and found that slugs love lettuce! Cold and damp is a Georgian slug's "wet dream"!

In Stone Mountain Georgia we have some of the best clay on the planet. Sadly vegetables don't really like growing in clay. Using compost it took 5-10 years to get decent soil. Then I quit gardening for 5 years. Fortunately the soil survived and my compost pile was a thing of beauty.

Anyway, I included all 5 boroughs in my 10% figure. I can't believe that 24% of the land in NY is city owned and not being used. Frankly I think 10% was generous. Nor do I think that New Yorker's are going to go along with building thousands of 30 story buildings so that they don't have to get their food trucked in.

Wikipedia lists 91 buildings in NYC 40 stories or higher. The actual list was by height so there are more and they stopped at 600 feet but the construction you are talking about will dwarf what NY has done in the last 100 years. At 5 acres per building and 30 stories a building Lets estimate how many buildings you are talking about.

The video you provided claimed a 5 time increase in lettuce production. Earlier an article claimed a 3 to 30 times increase in production for various crops.

Lets assume:
A 10 times improvement in efficiency.
80 percent of a building can be used for growth. Other areas are walls, structural, bathrooms, break rooms. stairwells, elevators, pipes, climate control and whatever.

A 30 story building on a 5 acre plot will have 120 acres of growing space.
That is equivalent to 1,200 acres of "dirt" farming. Since I earlier estimated about 1.5 acres per person, you will need 10 thousand of these buildings. Ten thousand? I've worked in lower Manhattan. You don't see allot of sunlight there today. You want to add 10,000 30 story buildings? Sure they will be scattered among the other boroughs but NYC will be home to the most sunlight deprived people on the planet. Do you really think that the people in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island or Queens want to give up their sunlight?

Now lets talk about the wind. The canyons of NYC are legendary for winds because of the buildings. You want to add 10,000 of them?

One more thing that I think would be ironic. With all this photosynthesis going on I wonder if they would have to add CO2 to the buildings. Assuming that the buildings are somewhat climate controlled opening the doors, vents, windows can't always be done.

[txlibdem]

30. I'm using the numbers from Dr. Despommier

Let's think about this a little bit. 30 story building... check. 5 acre plot... check. 120 acres of *FLOOR* space... check. But you forgot that the name of the building is Vertical Farm and you are assuming only one layer of plants per story. Most of the hydroponics systems I've linked to provide 9, 10 or 11 planting spaces stacked one atop of the other. Most of the plants that people like the most don't grow extremely tall. So in addition to the increased yields due to giving the plant the perfect amount of water, nutrients, CO2, light, the perfect PH and temperature, etc., the stacking of plants will enable extra levels of increased crop yields. I believe that is how he came to the 2400 acre figure.

So in my earlier post I did not achieve 1.5 acres per person I did achieve more than 1 acre per person. Perhaps some of the buildings will be 50 stories tall. Or perhaps some may be on a plot that is larger than 5 acres. It's far too early to tell exactly what will eventually happen with these vertical farms.

Have you checked out the artist renderings of Vertical Farms at http://www.verticalfarm.com ? If not I highly recommend it.

[AtheistCrusader]

28. Came here to rail about vertical axis wind turbines stealing money from horizontal axis wind turbine

s...


Leaving dissapointed.

[NYC_SKP]

31. Hey, vertical axis turbines need love, too!

Horizontal axis units getting all the love, sadness ensues in vertical axis world!

:P

[txlibdem]

32. Vertical Axis Wind Turbines demand equal rights

I have a dream... Wait a minute... that's already been said. :-)

But seriously folks, the roof edges of a vertical farm would be an ideal location to put vertical axis wind turbines. Would a Darrius or a Helix design work better at that location than a Savonius? Maybe someone knows that answer?