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Vertical farming thesis
Essay on vertical farming
Essay on vertical farming
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From jetpacks to teleportation and even cloning, humans have many ideas for the future. One fairly new idea is vertical farming. Vertical farming is a very promising idea, which may take off in the near future; however, the benefits currently do not outweigh the disadvantages.
Dickson D. Despommier is a microbiologist, ecologist, and Professor of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University. In Despommier’s book, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, vertical farming is the idea of farming goods such as vegetables, fruits, and even some animals in a controlled environment (3). In other words, vertical farming is essentially the act of farming vertically inside of a tall building. Although some may laugh at the idea of farming indoors, it is not an entirely new concept. Despommier states “crops like strawberry, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, and a wide variety of spices have made their way to world supermarkets in ever-increasing amounts over the last fifteen years.” (Despommier, 4). However, Despommier’s idea of vertical farming highly contrasts the greenhouses that currently exist. Despommier plans to have buildings at least 30 stories high that can produce enough food to comfortably feed 50,000 people (Despommier, Vertical Farming).
So why should we consider vertical farming? Three main reasons that Despommier lists are climate change, very few farmland available, and cheaper costs. Despommier believes that vertical farming can drastically help with climate change because once vertical farms are established, there will be no need for traditional farms which will allow them to convert back to forests and reduce the carbon dioxide in the air (Chamberlain). The rapidly growing po...
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...r, Dickso. Vertical Farming. Environmental Information Coalition, 8 Apr. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. .
Roach, John. High-Rise Farms: The Future of Food?. N.p., 30 June 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. .
Cox, Stan, and David V. Tassel. Why Planting Farms in Skyscrapers Won't Solve Our Food Problems. N.p., 3 May 2010. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. .
Countryfarm Lifestyles. Vertical Farming: What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Vertical Farm? . N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. .
Kuang, Cliff. Farming in the Sky. N.p., 4 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. .
After reading McKibben and Hurst’s articles in the book Food Matters, both authors present arguments on “industrial farming”, and although Hurst provides a realistic sense on farming, McKibben’s suggestions should be what we think about.
To begin, he introduces the idea that the food production farms aren’t these "happy farms" society makes us believe they are. For instance, the author Michael Pollan explains how farms began to expand causing corn to produce rapidly, leaving massive quantities of
As Jensen points out, farming and industry accounts for the vast majority of total water usage in the world (477). The increasingly scarce resource is a necessary ingredient when growing food. Technology continuously improves to make it easier for farmers to grow crops while using less water. Scientists at the University of Georgia utilize what they term “variable rate irrigation” to let farmers automate the current systems of irrigation to water only the crops that need it (Gies). This is an example of retrofitting current farms, but there is a new way of farming coming to cities that reuses practically all of its water and stakes claim much less acreage in the process. The future of agriculture belongs to vertical and urban farming. These types of farms reduce the use of water, chemicals (such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides), soil and space (The Economist). These farms are so cutting edge that they are mostly in the experimental stages. Firms like Famgro farms are testing “stackable” farming systems that can scale with demand, even further reducing waste. Famgro’s stackable farms are ideal for cityscapes where land is at a premium; furthermore, reaping the added benefit of being in close proximity to the customers that they serve. Customers will enjoy high quality, fresh produce at only a slightly
Philpott, Tom. “How Farm Policy Affects Us All.” Mother Earth News. 01 Jun 2007. 80. 21 Feb 2008.
Animal and plant husbandry due to human growth has transformed into factories that pump out foodstuffs in higher quantities than imaginable centuries in the past. This is done through the use of monocultures, which produce one single crop in high quantities, and factory farming, compact animal lots that grow the animal as quickly as possible for slaughter. The shift to monoculture farming and factory farming was due to the rapid increase in population and advancements in farming technology, for example pesticides. In recent years the focus has shifted to escaping factory farming through organic farming. Organic farming produces foodstuffs without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or any other artificial factors. Organic farming focuses on natural development of organisms. Author Michael Pollan in his essay “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” describes his time at an organic farm and describes Polyface Farm as profitable, efficient, cheap,
Meadows, H, Donella.. "Our food, our future." Organic Gardening. 01 Sep. 2000: 53. eLibrary. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
...not have to be this way. For natural agriculture to become a possibility, we must change the system. Changing the system involves change at the policy level. Rather than subsidizing the industrial farmers, government should subsidize the natural agriculturalists. Subsidizing local farmers would not only guarantee local farms remaining in the system but would guarantee land preservation and healthy foods at cheaper costs, allowing everyone the opportunity to join the system. However, “acting alone, secular environmentalists,” such as Polyface and Yokna Bottoms Farms, do not have the strength to fight the necessary political battle (Wilson 3). Working together and building the agriculture network from the bottom up will be the only way to ensure that our food system will work for the earth, not against it. Until then, I see no realistic future for natural agriculture.
“Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities” (Table, 2009). Local farming methods do not always use sustainable methods. Researching about the methods local farmers use is important in the decision to buy locally.
Conventional farming practices are responsible for many negative health and environmental issues. One of the main issues is the creation of monocultures in the farming environment. Specifically growing the same species of plants or animals in mass quantities without variation every season is not natural. Monocultures do not exist in nature (Pollan 67). Nature practices diversity and for good reason. In nature and organic farming, if there is a threat to one species, there are others to balance the decrease in the threatened species. Conventional farmers and the modern food industry argue that planting the same crop year after year is convenient and profitable because it cuts down on the different types of farm equipment necessary in production, and initially, in the types of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers needed. However, in this unnatural environment, tremendous amounts of pest...
The definition of conventional farming is “Intensive farming or intensive agriculture as an agricultural production system characterized by a low fallow ratio and the high use of inputs such as capital, labor, or heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area.” Conventional farming is the method that a majority of farmers use. Although they have to use a lot more chemicals and fertilizers, conventional farming is cheaper than organic farming. Conventional farming has significantly higher crop yields than organic thus, producing more money, making it much more farmer friendly. Conventional farmers also use genetically engineered seeds that are sometimes referred to as “miracle seeds” because of their ability to fight against certain diseases or produce higher yields. The technical term for these seeds is HYV’s or high yield varieties (Qaim). Conventional farming also incorporates the use...
As the global population continues to rise, the amount of food needed to feed the people will increase as well. Two types of agriculture systems have been the backbone for crop production for decades if not centuries: conventional and organic agriculture— both methods could not be any more different. Conventional agriculture, a method that uses synthetic chemical pesticides, technologies or additives, and practices that are unsustainable is the leading producer for our food. On the other side of spectrum, organic agriculture generally, performed in a much smaller scale, does not use synthetic chemicals and utilize methods that are environmentally sound. Most conventional
Phasing out animal agriculture and replacing it with stronger, safer plant cultivation would greatly reduce pollution released into the environment as animal waste, burning fossil fuels, and contaminated water runoff. The animal waste produced in factory farms is dumped into immense open-air lago...
The developments that arose out of the Enclosure Movement and the Industrial Revolution have shaped how we farm today. Farmers today produce large amounts of crops for great numbers of people. New tools and technologies, including genetically modified foods, are being developed to further advance these farming practices. Therefore, it can be said that the world is going through another Industrial Revolution, one that could last for many years to come.
Scientists say that farmers need to produce 50-100 percent more food than they already do now.... ... middle of paper ... ... Chances are farmers aren’t going to pack up everything to adapt to a new farming method that is just too expensive for the farmers.