A Future Filled With Foodscrapers

eric-boucher (68) · 7 years ago (edited)

What a great article, it gives hope in humanity! Well done!!!

Considering the investments and the size, the expectations of it being able to feed around 5,000 people per year is a very very low estimate. If the soil is any good, judging by the size of the building, it should feed an awful lot more than 5000 people a year. A sustainable permaculture garden using less than 2 acres can feed 50 families, how much surface to they have within this structure?

Thanks again for such quality content, it is a pleasure to upvote 100% and resteem its content too.

Namaste :)

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reko (70) · 7 years ago

Very cool news @doitvoluntarily! :) Haven't heard about the project before and I live in Sweden! Will definitely keep my eyes on it! :)

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doitvoluntarily (77) · 7 years ago

in Linköping 👍😄

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infidel1258 (67) · 7 years ago

This is great. Something has to change. We need more innovation in our agricultural systems or starvation will become a greater and greater first world problem.

"70% of our fresh water contamination comes from agriculture, and about 70% of our fresh water usage goes to agriculture, and 1/3 of our arable land has been degraded in the last 40 years"

Also check this out, Vertical farming in your apartment today:
https://littlegreendot.com/urban-farming-in-your-own-apartment/

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5 votes

eric-boucher (68) · 7 years ago

It is a first world problem in the first place as it is caused by that way of living. It has never been seen on such an extended period of time, outside of such civilization before, only within it. Though natural processes do bring about starvation through its processes, this one is caused and sustained by humans.

Vertical farming is an efficient way of doing agriculture, but what are we to do as humans towards other humans and other animals, plants and full ecosystems in general?

Namaste :)

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infidel1258 (67) · 7 years ago

Agreed. My point was that this problem need innovative solutions and aggricultural revolution can be part of that innovation.

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

"...what are we to do as humans towards other humans and other animals, plants and full ecosystems in general?"

How about nothing? Sometimes the best thing to do is not to do anything at all.

Back in the 1980s I drew up a nonprofit that was intended to lease land from those with extensive holdings, for the purpose of leaving it fallow.

It was more ambitious than my fundraising skillset, and eventually became $1000 investment in worthless bylaws, articles of incorporation, etc.

'Don't just do something. Sit there!' -- Valued Customer.

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eric-boucher (68) · 7 years ago

I love your last quote, this is something I often tell people!?. I take that you live in Alaska, maybe my thoughts were heard from Haida Gwaii!?! LOL!!!

Namaste :)

valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

I was raised in Alaska, and my youth has informed my dotage with the lessons learned there.

Working construction, I have all too often heard the inverse 'Do something, even if it's wrong.' After having to undo, and redo, a few things, I'd much rather take a minute to make sure something is worth doing before undertaking it.

eric-boucher (68) · 7 years ago (edited)

Powerful words of wisdom that come with the experiential knowledge behind it. Can't beat that with a stick right?!. Awesome!!!

Namaste :)

nomadics (63) · 7 years ago

Agree with that. We have technology and knowledge to feed 10 billion people. Vertical farming have a future with hydroponics /aquaponics /aeroponics, but not in foodscrapers. Foodscrapers are not practical.

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eric-boucher (68) · 7 years ago

They are practical in building a centralized area where human can use less energy and less land surface, especially since the lands of our small planet are being decimated by our careless encroachment, destroying our own ecosystem.

Using a building constructed with sustainable material would allow us to use the technologies available through the uprise of efficient hydroponics, aquaponics and aeroponics systems within the building construction, therefore building as sustainable a construction as is in the engineering of its social, environmental and energy impact on the planet and all of its inhabitants. Meanwhile, the natural ecosystems around us would have some time to recover from our on-slaught over the passed centuries thus re-establishing and solidifying the natural cycles from which life emerged and thrived.

Namaste :)

nomadics (63) · 7 years ago

The vertical farm from the clip looked like 1 floor storage space.
There is a reason for the high rents of office space in skyscrapers. It is hard to build very high buildings, and it is expensive to maintain them. When we build more than 10 storey building there are only two materials - steel and reinforced concrete (not environmental friendly). There will be also high electricity consumption for water. We need pumps to push the water to reservoir on 15 floor then other pumps to deliver the water from 15 to 30 floor, etc. I am sure there also will be problems with air conditioning. I think it is just not sustainable to use high building for a farm. Low buildings with glass roofs or artificial lights will be better. Humans occupy less than 5% of the land mass of the planet we have space for hydroponics.
Cheers

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eric-boucher (68) · 7 years ago

"We may be occupying less than 5%, but our impact far exceeds this number, especially on healthy natural lands: "Tobler et al. partitioned 217 countries into a total of 19,032 polygons with 295,000 persons per polygon. This amounted to an area of 25.4% of earth's surface. So that would be around 96% being considered as occupied at a population density of 42.45 people/sq.km (But the quadrangles would also include a lot of protected and unprotected wilderness and uninhabited deserts. So it would be far to smoothed to give a proper idea of how much land is inhabited)
_{by Tobler et al. (1995)The Global Demography Project (Natl. Center for Geographic Information and Analysis,Univ. California, Santa Barbara) , Tech. Rep. 95–6."*}

Furthermore...

"Another interesting perspective was given by a new global map of European Commission's Joint Research Center which was published in the World Bank's World Development report in 2009.[3] According to the report, 95% of world's population is concentrated on just 10% of world's land surface. While only 10% of the world's land is classified as remote or more than 48 hours from a large city. So we can either state that most humans now inhabit only 10% 0f world's land, but we have the rest 80% well connected with roads, highways, farmlands.etc. So depending on time taken to travel, we can say that humans now inhabit 90% of world's land leaving only 10% for wilderness."

For the moment, most of the material used to make high rise is in deed underlined in your note just above, but loads of new materials are arising and finding their way into structures of all sizes and 3-D designed printed. According to the researches made on the use of skyscrapers of all sort, we could use such building strictly for agricultural necessities and water could be either brought up and/or gathered as well. Many options of energy alternatives are offered and already running on the front. the buildings themselves wouldn't need to be containing any offices. the use of wind gathered within the buildings' structures allows for electricity generation and thus providing for all energy consumptions necessary for water/air pumping, when needed and where moisture, water and heat is needed as per arcology principles, see Arcosanti publications.

Great conversation, by the way, thanks a lot for this as it is such an important topic we need to tackle as a civilization.

Namaste :)

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3 votes

nomadics (63) · 7 years ago (edited)

Yes great conversation. It is true we impacting the whole planet. By 5% I mean concentrated urban population. There is a lot of space around the cities not occupied by wild life. We can use hydroponics and vertical farms in the suburban area. Skyscrapers for food is just not the way in my opinion. Nations build skyscrapers mostly for prestige not because they need them so badly... There are new materials. Nanotubes are promising but we can’t manufacture them in big industrial scale. No buildings from nanotubes any time soon...

Cheers :)

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

It is exciting. My feral youth on an Alaskan island has caused me to eschew cities and urbanization, due to the paucity of vibrant life in such places.

Incorporating ecosystems into our urban infrastructure, much as our very bodies are becoming understood to be ecosystemic infrastructure (about 10% of the cells in your body are YOUR cells, the rest are essential ecosystem without which humans cannot survive), is essential to creating environments in which humans thrive.

Our need for nature, for the complexity of forms, niches, and synchronicity, which we need to interface with (in my case, daily) to be happy, is more and more evident in studies in diverse fields, from sociology, to biology, to civil engineering.

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nomadics (63) · 7 years ago

Starvation is not about agricultural systems. Developed countries throw away 30%-40% of their food.

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joalvarez (68) · 7 years ago

I have never seen or heard of projects like that before so thank you for sharing this I guess future with us.

kyusho (68) · 7 years ago

This is what the future looks like... some say the closing shopping malls would make perfect indoor farms.

synthesizing (25) · 7 years ago

Vertical Farming definitely has potential to do great things. However, the food industry needs to be included in this implementation process because this technology will completely change the way we buy and produce food in the economically developed part of the world.

We are curious to know what the food industry is doing with this technology? Because if they do not cooperate this will never take off.

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

Cargill, Monsanto, et al., are, hopefully, so busy laughing all the way to the bank from their present predatory successes that they will ignore this endeavor, at least until some entrepreneurial success has attracted talent that might pose an impediment to transnational oligarchical predation.

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synthesizing (25) · 7 years ago

Yes it seems so that vertical farming is left alone, but it is fair to assume that Supermarket chains will want to take action since it will disrupt the entire way cities acquire food right?

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valued-customer (67) · 7 years ago

Supermarkets shouldn't generally be impacted by changing where foods are grown, as they aren't involved in that process. The foods are delivered to the markets, from where ever they are grown, and markets sell them.

They don't care, and aren't impacted, except as the producers change, and prices change.

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vibeof100monkeys (58) · 7 years ago

Amazing I have been waiting for the vertical farming to take off amazing!

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doitvoluntarily (77) · 7 years ago

thanks for stopping by @vibeof100monkeys ! :)

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nomadics (63) · 7 years ago

Cool post, but I am not so optimistic about the foodscrapers.

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hunterwritlarge (33) · 7 years ago

Alterra did something similar on parking structure in Vancouver where fresh greens are scarce in the winter. They used a hydroponic system and got lots of funding (debt). They declared bankruptcy 25 million in debt. The major concerns were the cost of infastructure compared to profits from growing fresh greens (3-4 weeks seed to harvest). Growing fruit crops like eggplant would have been economically challenging.
Outside of the wow-factors (urban, organic, local), there was the harsh reality of high overhead costs and slim profit margins.
Tread carefully!

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dakini5d (55) · 7 years ago

The vertical farm is really cool. It does have the Agenda 2030 smell to it, however. And, as with most tech, it will be found to miss something essential to human health-- contact of our food with the earth. Upvoted and Resteemed! @dakini5d

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alexcote (62) · 7 years ago

This is amazing idea! Along with other Scandinavian countries, Sweden is truly progressive.

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