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Vertical Farms

At the turn of the millennium, most people were either preparing to party like they've never partied before, or were frantically stockpiling food and goods in an underground bomb shelter preparing for the "inevitable" Y2K. But one man, Dickson Despommier, a public health professor at Columbia U', and 82 of his grad students were busy developing an idea which could revolutionize the way we all look at agriculture. 

The team created the concept of the "vertical farm" and had hopes that word of their revolutionary idea would spread quickly and turn heads in all major cities of the world. 

The "vertical farm" is essentially a 30 story tower which houses an array of flora and vegetables. All of the produce would be grown locally and naturally in the tower which would be completely self sufficient with either large wind turbines or solar panels on the roof to power the building.

Since the concepts birth in 1999, architects around the world have taken an interest and have even created some renderings of possible vertical farms. ( these photos can be found in the below link )

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/15/science/0715-FARMING_2.html

A full size tower would  be capable of providing fresh produce for up to fifty-thousand people, would be impermeable to natural predators, as-well as floods and drought and would promote buying local  as well as adding a nice touch of scenery to major cities. 

Imagine a world where produce was grown only a few miles from your home, that practically brings new meaning to the word "fresh." 

Vertical Farms in every major city could significantly reduce carbon emissions as people wouldn't have to travel nearly as far to acquire fresh produce, nor would produce need to be imported as frequently. 

For more information on Vertical Farms
check out

 www.VerticalFarm.com

or for the rest of the NY Times Article:

http://nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15farm.html?_r=3&hp&oref=login&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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