5 ms·

I have to admit to being astonished that there was a need in the first place to explain that vertical farms are a crock[1]. The long list of articles from prom

• fleitz 16y ago
  If farmland is as scarce as Monbiot proposes then vertical farms could work. Most of the value of a $1000 a month apartment is in consumer surplus. Yes, a vertical farm in manhattan will probably never work, but one on some existing farm land in New Jersey probably will. Vertical farms currently won't work but any real scarcity in farmland will drive up prices until it becomes economical as the price of food is highly elastic.
  • hugh3 16y ago
    Farmland isn't actually scarce, though. Right now the world has plenty of farmland for all its people, which is why food is so cheap and why we can afford to consume massively space-wasting crops. People may be starving in Africa, but it's for political reasons which have nothing to do with the amount of arable land there (significantly more than China or India which have similar populations to Africa). If the world's population ever does increase to the point where farmland is scarce, there's a lot of other things which become economical before skyscraper farms do... even if fusion energy comes along to solve the lighting problem. Switching to land-efficient crops is one thing. Irrigating the world's deserts is another. Even farms on barges out in the ocean make a lot more economic sense than skyscraper farms.
    • alex_stoddard 16y ago
      I am genuinely interested in references for available arable land in Africa vs China & India.
  • deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  • dalke 16y ago
    Maine once provided food for the northeast. Once the rails went through the Appalachians to the plains, it was no longer profitable. The countryside turned back into forest. If farmland ever gets that scarce, then we'll start seeing farms in Maine again, and farmers would be buying back the suburbs of Chicago. Farmland simply is not that scarce, and it's hard to imagine how it would be that scarce. Supposing (for argument's sake, rather than reality) that it was feasible - wouldn't it be better to build vertical farms out in the countryside, away from expensive urban centers?
• Tangurena 16y ago
  The profit margin for a grain farmer in the US is about $100/acre in a good year. There are 43,560 square feet per acre. The ballpark estimate for construction of 10-20 story office space is $125-150 per square foot. To break even, you'll have to build something that requires zero maintenance that also lasts about 60,000 years and of course you'll need zero point zero interest rates over those sixty millenia just to break even.
  • duke_sam 16y ago
    And of course you need to worry about pest management when growing that much of anything in such density. What sort of mechanisms you would need to harvest? Can't see a combine harvester fitting in the freight elevator. There's a million and one things wrong with this idea. It's depressing how many news outlets haven't done any real journalism and checked with someone who actually grows any kind of plant for a living.