By 2050, 80% of the world’s population will live in cities. One of the most urgent questions this phenomenon throws up is undoubtedly this: just how we are going to provide food for all of these people? We will need the appropriate infrastructure and logistical planning designed to guarantee a sufficient supply of food to cities, all against the backdrop of sustainability, where food is available to all despite the rapidly growing population and declining availability of land for crops and livestock. Clearly, it’s time to tackle the subject of the smart city once again.

Elevate as you cultivate

Vertical farming is the practice of growing lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, strawberries and the like in plots situated one on top of the other like shelves, or in vertical rows of cylinders running in parallel. Rather than filling space on the ground, vertical farming takes advantage of the space above us and thus drastically reduces the amount of land needed, making it possible to practice agricultural activities in the city.

It’s a method of off-the-ground cultivation generally used in self-contained spaces like apartment blocks, skyscrapers, warehouses and even old containers that have been converted into greenhouses. Working in these types of structures means working within a controlled environment, where temperature, humidity and watering are overseen with mathematical precision and the crop is protected from potential harmful weather conditions, pathogens and parasites. Light is provided by LEDs, so the natural seasons are rendered irrelevant. And more and more often, water consumption is greatly reduced thanks to hydroponic and aeroponic cultivation.

Harvests can be 100 times more plentiful than conventional growing, with massive cost advantages across both production and transport. There are plenty of benefits in terms of logistics and product freshness too, given that everything can easily be contained within cities.

A bit of background history

At the beginning of the century just gone, the concept of vertical farming was little more than a futuristic fantasy. Its champions were seen as visionaries rather than true experts in cultivation and architecture. The initial prototypes emerged during the Le Corbusier era, in the 1920s, but the first modern structures didn’t arrive until late in the century, as a result of challenges set by Environmental Sciences professor Dickson Despommier to his students, who were tasked with preparing a plan to feed the entire population of Manhattan using only the roofs of buildings or an “allotment” thirty floors up occupying a tiny plot of land.

Vertical farming today

Naturally, there is more activity surrounding practices of this type in built-up areas characterised by high population density. One of the best examples of this is Tokyo, home to some of the biggest vertical farming structures in the world. Tokyo produces 10,000 lettuce hearts every day, yet requires only half the energy consumed by traditional growing methods, for instance. There are also facilities springing up in the London area which combine vegetable growing with aquaculture – fish farming.

Another fine example is that of Seattle, where access to local products is not always guaranteed despite a population hungry for healthy, fresh food. Local company Plenty is investing heavily to scale up vertical farming structures where crops can be grown without the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers. The Internet of Things (sensors, infrared cameras) is playing an important role here too, monitoring the growth and ensuring the health of the plants. And to get an idea of just how large the scale of this project is, just think that one of the investors behind the idea is Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon. There are plenty more examples like this to read up on too.

Limitations and criticism

Despite the fact that these projects are fascinating and technologically innovative, they are not immune from unresolved problems and unanswered questions. For example, the start-up costs involved in this type of activity are enormous, when you compare them with those associated with a classic hydroponic greenhouse, while the tech required is still very much in the testing and development phase. Moreover, it is still necessary to delve deeper into each case to establish their energy needs and, more generally, their impact on the environment.

Facebook Skyscrapers, warehouses and even old containers can be transformed into proper allotments used for growing lettuce, spinach and much more. Vertical farming is the new form of agriculture that makes use of any space, no matter how high. We look at how it works and how much potential it has.