LONG VALLEY, New Jersey — Across the world, there are an estimated 870 million people suffering from chronic malnourishment and 852 million of these hungry people live in developing countries, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. While the world currently produces enough food to feed everyone, these impoverished people lack critical resources, sufficient land to grow crops and a stable income.
But recent reports predict that billions more people will be hungry in 2050 and, with an expanding global population and limited sources of water and agricultural land, scientists are looking to genetic engineering and industrial processing to ensure an adequate food supply. Now, a new and promising solution is emerging: vertical farming practices.
Our awareness of food supply levels has been heightened in recent years due to massive crop failures, millennial level floods, protracted droughts and various food-borne disease outbreaks. As the population continues to expand, nearly tripling from 2.4 to seven billion since 1950, a greater pressure is placed on the world’s agricultural industries and the global demand for food has grown accordingly. The U.N. predicts that the global population will reach nine billion by 2050 and an agricultural area equal in size to roughly half of South America will be needed to feed this immense population.
Vertical farming – stacked greenhouses that use artificial light to grow crops – is not a relatively new idea: indigenous people in South America have consistently used vertically layered growing techniques in their crops, and farmers in East Asia use a similar practice in their rice terraces. It was not until 1915 that geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey coined the term “vertical farming,” and only in 1999 was the concept transformed into a reality.
Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental health sciences and microbiology at Columbia University, was the first to develop a concrete model of vertical farming with his students. His initial idea was “rooftop farming,” or cultivating plants on the flat roofs of high-rises throughout New York City, but the students calculated that the roof-top based farming would only feed, at most, two percent of Manhattan’s population. Instead, Despommier and his students found a way to use vertical farming inside the buildings. According to Despommier, a single 30-story vertical farm could feed approximately 50,000 people and, theoretically, 160 of these structures could provide New York with a year-round guaranteed food supply.
With these promising calculations, companies have begun to develop vertical farms on a small scale. In the Netherlands, Plant Lab, a business located three floors underground in the city of Den Bosch, has already produced foods stocked in supermarket shelves. While the business is still in its early stages, Plant Lab estimates that its vertical farm will employ about 200 people for seeding, growing, harvesting and packaging and will supply 50,000 people with a high-quality seven-ounce daily stock of fresh herbs, vegetables and ground fruits such as various berries. Moreover, Plant Lab manages without any sunlight and uses almost 90 percent less water than a conventional farm.
Scientists have also predicted that entire countries will soon be able to use vertical farming to feed their populations, especially those with high food insecurity rates. The South Korean government has already expressed considerable interest, as the country stands fifth-to-last in a global ranking on food security.
While it will take much time for vertical farming to be implemented on a commercial scale in South Korea, the country is desperate to address the increasing food prices, climate change and anticipated national disasters that result in a hungry population.
With urban agriculture projected to provide populations with up to 50 percent of the food they consume, vertical farming and similar practices may also be beneficial to poor countries with limited agricultural production and scarce amounts of food.
– Abby Bauer
Sources: Forum Blog, BBC, Spiegel, World Hunger
Photo: Flickr