Vertical Farming

The other processes inside:

LED bulbs save energy and can be tuned to the specific wavelengths favored by each species (only red for lettuce, for example).

Robotic arms equipped with mechanical noses “sniff” plants and harvest them based on the presence of specific alcohols, a more precise judge of ripeness than color.

Raising cattle is inefficient—only 3 percent of the energy used to raise a cow ends up as protein on your plate. Instead, scientists will cultivate slabs of meat in the lab from chicken, pig or cow stem cells raised on a diet of water, glucose and natural proteins. To approximate the texture of meat, they will “exercise” the muscle with electrical pulses. The fatty texture of a porterhouse is too complex to replicate, but sausage and chicken nuggets should be routine in a decade.

Note: images by Graham Murdoch, overall story courtesy of Popular Science periodical.

New Technology

Vertical farming is a farming strategy in which plants are grown inside urban high-rises. These buildings are called "farmscrapers". Farmscrapers can also house livestock and fish. With this kind of strategy, fruit, vegetables, fish, and livestock would be produced year-round in cities which can help the cities become self-sufficient. The farming techniques used in these farmscrapers would also include recycling of materials and other greenhouse methods.Wind power, solar power, and incineration of raw sewage and the inedible portion of harvested crops can also be included in the farmscrapers to power the building. To see a video about this, click here.

Advantages
Small space is used
Faster transport of products
Products become more readily available
Crops can be produced in large quantities through combining hydroponic, aeroponic and other related growing methods.

Vertical Farming

Vertical-axis wind turbines are potentially 50 percent more efficient in low wind conditions than conventional turbines.





Ceiling-mounted systems monitor and control humidity, temperature, and nutrient distribution.

Farmers load harvested plants onto a central elevator to be sold at the grocery store below.



Even a few insects or pathogens could decimate the enclosed crops, so farmers entering the building must don containment suits and pass through airlocks. Scientists will coat plants with genetically modified bacteria that glow in the presence of a threatening disease or pest, alerting farmers to an outbreak.
Plants don’t have millions of years to adapt to indoor hydroponic growth cycles, so botanists must select and breed the strains that perform best. Other scientists will blend specialized fertilizers for the plants so that they’ll contain micronutrients essential to the human diet, like selenium and zinc.

Chickens require little space and yield one pound of meat per two pounds of feed—very efficient by farming standards.




Neighbors purchase vertical-farm goods in the tower’s ground-floor grocery store, and electric trucks deliver food to local markets.