The Vertical Farm

by Dr. Dickson Despommier

  Today’s urban health hazards come in many forms: air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution. In the United States, for example, there are more than a few cities that have unhealthy levels of fine particulates and surface ozone. Some of the worst places to raise children or to grow old are Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Newark–New York, Houston, Dallas, and Baltimore–Washington, D.C. Mexico City is one of the world’s worst cities for air pollution. Its air is often so contaminated with fumes from auto, bus, and truck exhaust, as well as propane stoves, that it can actually be seen; eyes water, noses run, and hospital admissions from asthma attacks soar. No city is completely immune from this kind of environmental insult. Drinking water is another essential resource and varies greatly in quality, depending upon the city in question. In 2001 the Natural Resources Defense Council ranked the quality of drinking water for many of America’s largest cities. Among the poorest were Boston, Albuquerque, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Fresno.

  My Dog’s Bigger Than Your Dog

  There is a new iteration of architectural imperialism: up. Building it bigger does not mean building it better, but bigger and bigger the buildings get. I was in Dubai in March 2008 when the Burj Dubai became the tallest constructed object on earth. Precisely what purpose that building will serve is not clear, even to its developers, who are still deciding on how many floors it should have. But it has, in the meantime, consumed huge quantities of steel and concrete, and at least one human life. Something has to change, or…well, I think I’ve spent enough time on this depressing subject. We need to look into the future and find ways to reinvent ourselves in the image of a hybrid techno-biosphere entity, using the best of what is available to reconfigure things in favor of eco-friendly solutions to the global dilemmas of climate change and urbanization. A few communities worthy of mention are planning in the right direction, closing loops on things like waste management and energy consumption: Vauban, Germany; Curitiba, Brazil; Växjö, Sweden; Toronto, Canada; Kampala, Uganda. None of them has yet incorporated urban food production into its sustainability plans.

  For the Greater Good

  What good will the vertical farm bring to the built environment? Philosophically speaking, defining a social benefit can be tricky. It is often predicated on the principal of whom the benefit does the most for. The one I favor is this: A social benefit should empower the vast majority of the citizens of any given community. Such things as fluoride in drinking water to help prevent cavities, public health services associated with food inspection, universal health care (hm…), social security benefits, public transportation and schools, community hospitals, and the like all fall into the category of “for the greater good.” If this all sounds too ideal for the real world, well then, so be it. Aiming high never got anyone tarred and feathered, although I can think of several brave politicians—Adlai Stevenson and Bill Bradley, for example—who didn’t get elected president because they embraced this philosophy. I am not naive enough to believe that the vertical farm will exist mainly for the benefit of the world’s underserved communities, although I certainly wish that this could be so; on the contrary, there is the real possibility that the first couple of vertical farms might end up benefiting the few (commercial growers) and not the many. My students have expressed to me more than once that they have great concern that the idea, however well intentioned, may end up as a financial success only for those with the money and power to make it happen. Unfortunately, I am afraid I will not be able to do much about this, since the idea is already out in the public domain. As with the first televisions, cell phones, automobiles, and so forth, the wealthy will seem to have ready access to them due to their initial high cost and scarcity, while the not-so-well-off will have to wait a bit longer for their versions to enter the marketplace. The poor will have to wait longer yet, but since sometimes they also get what everyone else now has—witness the explosion in sales (and low cost) of the modern cell phone—there is hope that they will have easy access to the vertical farm, too.

  Since the first vertical farms are likely to be prototypes, hence experimental in nature, I don’t think large numbers of people will benefit immediately from them, except for those research teams working in them. Governments might become directly involved in financing and developing the concept to feed the majority of its citizens. Countries such as Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia have great need for vertical farms and are also economically empowered to fund such long-term projects. In those instances, the vast majority of their citizens would benefit sooner, as the research would be funded by contracts and grants. A good example of what happens to a good idea that keeps getting better is the way we invented the method for sequencing our own genome. In the beginning, things were time consuming and labor intensive. The right technical innovations had not yet appeared on the scene. Then, as the scientific community demanded faster and more accurate results, the inventor part of our brain got to work and came up with newer, faster, cheaper machines that saved the day. Today, some twenty years down the road, we are contemplating sequencing every species’ DNA.

  Think Globally, Act Globally

  Benefits from establishing a vertical-farming industry at the global level would result in creating the next green revolution. Such an industry would bring a measure of stability to unstable regions of the world, for example the Middle East, that now bicker and fight over scarce water resources and lack diversity in their diets due to limited farmland and a harsh desert climate. Blights of plant diseases (e.g., wheat rust, rice blast) would be greatly reduced, and crops lost to locust invasions, mostly in West Africa, would be a thing of the past. It would mean we finally had control over our own destiny with regard to where our daily bread came from. For countries that routinely run out of food, it would mean no more starvation or malnutrition, and for those more fortunate ones it would mean less farming outdoors and more land available to return to nature. This is probably the number-one environmental reason for creating vertical farms, and I have given a more complete description of the positive consequences in chapter 5.

  The implications for a sustainable food supply without further damage to the environment are obvious. The general health status of the world’s children would rapidly improve. Reduction in the infant mortality rates due to starvation or from diarrheal diseases transmitted by fecally contaminated water and food would be greatly reduced. These two problems are the most serious public health issues that will be addressed by the vertical farm in areas where staggeringly high rates of infant mortality are the driving forces in population increase. People naturally have more children because few survive to adulthood. Other pressing health problems that would also experience a dramatic reduction in incidence and prevalence would include all forms of malnutrition, especially obesity and type 2 diabetes.

  One possibly negative aspect of the globalization of vertical farming would relate to international commerce agreements dealing with agricultural produce. These trade agreements might need to be reestablished based on products not amenable to this mode of production (i.e., cattle).

  Think Globally, Act More Locally

  Speculating about the possible social benefits of vertical farming requires that it be restricted in terms of cultures, since each country is unique, altering the “take” on what a vertical-farm industry would mean for it. I leave this daunting task for someone else, as I have no intention of going through each and every one of the 192 member states recognized by the United Nations and giving my impressions of what the vertical farm would look like and how it might function there. That would be downright silly and pretentious. However, qualifying vertical farming’s social-benefits package based on political systems is one way to present the variety of ways in which the concept might manifest itself, and one which I feel more comfortable discussing.

  I’ll begin with the issue of governmental stability. In a peaceful environment, almost anything is possible. As of August 16, 2009, however, some thirty countries were at war or experi
encing widespread civil unrest, and would be excluded from the “luxury” of establishing some form of the vertical farm. Not that it could not happen, but the likelihood of such countries maintaining vertical farms would be remote, at best; they would most likely become a target for the opposition. Nine of these unfortunate places are in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a gross understatement to point out that these countries in particular are the ones that most need rescuing from hunger, starvation, and the myriad infectious diseases associated with strife. In chapter 8, about alternate uses for the vertical farm, I will discuss the possibility of creating a MASH-like unit for portable vertical farms, specifically designed to address the issue of starvation and malnutrition among those who are displaced by war, civil unrest, and natural disasters.

  Among the world’s stable governments, the democracies of the G-20 nations will most likely take the path of least resistance and leave the development of vertical farms up to the private sector, with encouragement in the form of government-sponsored research programs. Socialist countries such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland will most likely take a more active role in their establishment. Most countries throughout the Middle East have great need for the concept of vertical farming. Some of them have the financial ability, due to the fact that they produce huge amounts of oil and natural gas and are controlled by a few leaders (i.e., a monarchy), to assemble and fund the teams needed to do so at the snap of a finger. I anticipate that the Middle East will become a world center for vertical farming, and sooner rather than later.

  The World Bank could also become a major player in financially helping to establish vertical farms in countries that cannot afford them, but that have great need. Many of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Niger, Chad, Mali, Malawi, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoir, Central African Republic, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, United Republic of Tanzania, and Kenya). Private foundations and nongovernmental agencies could also contribute to their development. Finally, private investors could step up to the plate.

  Every Day Gets a Little Better

  As the concept matures through applied research, and versions of the vertical farm begin to insinuate into the free market place, more and more citizens will reap the benefits of working in or living near one; of this I am certain. When the advantages of vertical farming become known and accepted by the majority of an urban community, then consumer pressure will ensure that more vertical farms will be constructed, bringing new markets to their town. What will a vertical-farming industry mean for any community living near one? Actually, it’s quite simple: jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Jobs at all levels. It is an easy thing to imagine who might work in the vertical farm, as well as who might benefit most from having them in their communities. The number and kind of employment opportunities relate to the robustness of the vertical farm concept. Early versions will contain the essentials, but little else. Nonetheless, skilled professionals—managers, developers, architects, engineers, planners, agronomists, waste-to-energy personnel, sales personnel, educators, security personnel, laboratory personnel (microbiologists, molecular biologists, technicians, and supervisors), as well as a large unskilled labor force whose job descriptions will vary from overseeing the harvesting and the delivering of produce from the vertical farm to local green markets, to managing the waste streams generated by harvesting, are the major categories of employment opportunities that will be available once the vertical farm complex is built. Each one of these jobs has an essential role to play in the running of the complex, and most important, all of these new jobs will be music to the ears of local government and community leaders.

  The vertical-farm building, being as transparent as air and housing green plants from floor to ceiling, irrespective of its final shape, will be a radical departure from the standard architectural model of glass-and-steel construction. Because of this essential feature, and the fact that it will actually do something besides look good, it will be an instant hit with architectural journals, city planners, design schools, eco-urbanists, city farmers, futurists, schoolkids, the popular press, and the media, placing it squarely in the face of the entire planet. Some buildings that have already attracted this sort of attention include the Apple Store at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth street in New York City, and the ING headquarters building in Amsterdam. Both of these new iconic structures turned millions of heads the moment they imposed themselves into their cityscapes. Showcasing the virtues of urban high-rise agriculture with the vertical farm and demonstrating its essential contribution to sustainability with an adjacent eco-learning center will guarantee a steady stream of tourists, who will flock to get a firsthand look at the infant future city. This in turn will generate much-welcomed tourist dollars. Urban properties, long abandoned and decaying, will become prime real estate for vertical farms, since brown fields will not pose a problem due to the fact that everything will be self-contained. This will make available huge tracts of marginalized land, such as obsolete industrial parks. Inner-city abandoned lots could be easily converted to vertical-farm complexes, not only adding much-needed revenue to the city coffers, but also eliminating “food deserts.” The inner cities of most American metropolises have few if any high-end grocers like Whole Foods. City officials give a variety of excuses when asked why this is so, but the most common ones relate to high property-insurance rates and lack of political pressure from those living there to improve the situation. In many instances, the dominant ethnicities of the inhabitants of inner cities are minorities; Asian, Hispanic, and African American. Bringing the vertical farm to those areas will be like a breath of fresh air, boosting morale, especially among individuals who have lived all their lives in those communities and who have become intractably cynical due to political marginalization. Because vertical farms will by their very nature be things of beauty, challenging any modern expression of the new architecture for “best in show,” neighborhoods will take great pride in welcoming them into their midst as stunning and nurturing parts of the local scene, as highly desired as a new park. Populations of unwanted residents (rats, mice, cockroaches) will plummet due to waste-management schemes that will have been “piggybacked” onto new, more efficient, less polluting ones established expressly for the vertical farm. New cuisines may even arise with more varied produce available 24/7. With vertical farms scattered throughout the urban landscape, city life will start to reflect the essentials of ecological process, producing food and recycling all waste. When this finally occurs, the promise of a sustainable, healthy future will be well within citizens’ reach. This, then, is the ultimate social benefit: to live long and prosper.

  chapter 8

  The Vertical Farm: Alternate Uses

  Change starts when someone sees the next step.

  —WILLIAM DRAYTON, SR.

  Food production is only one example of how the vertical farm could contribute in a positive way to urban life. Plants have the capacity to help out in many other ways, too. They are often referred to as “living machines,” a term first coined by John Todd, the venerable systems ecologist best known for his work on environmental remediation. In 1969 Todd founded the New Alchemy Institute and began to design microecosystems, self-contained plant communities inside greenhouses. Using them as small-scale prototypes for larger real-world projects, he revolutionized how we approach solving environmental cleanups using specific plant species to sequester things such as heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic chemicals from contaminated wetlands, estuaries, and lakes. Today, there are many examples of how plants have been put to work making our built environment a greener and safer place to live in. One outstanding case in point is the rest stop along Route 89, just north of White River Junction in Vermont. Constructed in 2005, this eco-friendly complex remediates black water into safe, usable water for growing decorative plants that are its centerpiece. At the same time, a large portion of the recovered water is sent back to an underground reservoir that supplies the flush toilets with recycled, safe-to-use water. Applying this
kind of thinking to the vertical-farm concept will allow for its application in nontraditional situations, including the reclaiming of drinking water from grey water, the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals extracted from higher plants, and the production of biofuels from algae and higher plants.