Vertical farming skyscrapers. Who says you can't feed the world?

[lunatica]

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=moz35&va=vertical+farming+skyscrapers

http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/

[FSogol]

1. Make it so. K & R. n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

12. +1

[KittyWampus]

168. Sci-Fi movies should start featuring this kind of stuff regularly.

[mdmc]

177. 1

[FSogol]

2. Link?

[lunatica]

6. I added a couple of links

But there are lots if you google vertical farm skyscrapers

[FSogol]

11. Thanks. Sadly, it doesn't take (even the progressives) very long to poo-paw any idea.

The future used to be a lot bigger.

[lunatica]

16. The negative responses are depressing.

[FSogol]

23. I agree. Yesterday, I posted an article for a personal helicopter using small turbines and

everyone dissed the idea. Sure, it is the old flying jetpack stuff, but a least it is an attempt at an innovation. I want to return to an age where the future is big and the country can do amazing things.

[lunatica]

32. I saw that post

I wanted to respond positively but got turned off by the negative posts. They just suck the enthusiasm right out of you.

[WillParkinson]

132. Hey wait a sec...

I thought I said something about wanting to be reincarnated just so I could come back to fly in one of those because it looked cool. In fact I saved the page so that I could show it to Paul.

[FSogol]

143. I saw it. I know that everyone isn't negative. Keep up the good optimism.

;)

[justiceischeap]

3. Just what the world needs, vertical factory farming. nt

[lunatica]

8. That's exactly what it needs

You could build these anywhere in the world. If enough of these skyscrapers were built in cities like New York they would become self-sufficient in growing heir own food. And it would always be fresh food which would not be at the mercy of droughts, freezing, or pests.

[justiceischeap]

39. As long as it were organic, free range farming that would be fine

but I'm referring to factory farms that no matter how or where they are built are still bad for you.

[MineralMan]

4. Let me know when one of these gets built on the scale shown

in the artwork. If I'm still alive when that happens, anyhow.

I don't think the economics work on for this.

[NickB79]

5. Like we're going to build millions of skyscrapers in the middle of a depression

At a cost of many, many trillions of dollars.

The irony is that almost all of the demand for more food in the coming years will come from developing nations in Asia and Africa that can't afford to build vertical towers.

[lunatica]

10. Can the world afford not to have something like this? 7 billion people and all...

[NickB79]

42. Yes, it can unfortunately

We already turn our backs on millions of people being malnourished and starving every year now. We just lost HALF A MILLION people in Somalia due to famine.

Letting poor people die is always cheap, unfortunately.

[Uncle Joe]

15. Not all at once and we won't be in any depression forever, although for what it's worth

the Empire State building was built during the Great Depression and provided drastically needed jobs.

[lunatica]

18. So was the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, as well as the Hoover Dam

I guess there are a lot of people who have puny little imaginations.

[Uncle Joe]

28. And the Tennessee Valley Authority.

People have different strengths, not everyone has vision but they make up for it in other ways.

[NickB79]

44. The problem is that we don't have much time left to implement these solutions

Between a growing population, Peak Oil, global warming, water depletion, soil degradation, ocean acidification, and increasing resistance to herbicides and pesticides among pest species, food production is going to become very dicey in many parts of the world in the next 20 years. You would need to construct many towers PER DAY, for DECADES, to fend off potential famines as conventional farming fails in various parts of the world.

And the kicker is that the richest nations like the US, Canada, Japan, and Europe aren't the ones that will be paying for these. That burden would fall upon the countries that will be impacted most by the whirlwind of global warming, population growth, and energy depletion: the African and Asian nations that can ill-afford to spend the kind of money required.

The only country I could see putting in such structures on a meaningful level is China.

[Uncle Joe]

46. This is not the be all of answers, it's just one of many changes, approaches and strategies needed

to take place in order to address, those valid concerns that you list.

Virtually everything needs to change whether it be sources and uses of energy, the economy, transportation, architecture, the design of our cities and homes, the over reliance on pesticides and definitely the elimination of war.

The nutrition company Shaklee's motto is "In Harmony with Nature" that's the kind of thinking that needs to take place across all segments of human society, we've separated ourselves from our only home in the universe for too long and we're paying a heavy price for it.

[txlibdem]

146. You must admit that vertical farms have to be in the mix of answers

You are right about the list of ills our society suffers from but we can't tackle them one at a time. We need to restructure our societies on a global scale and we have to start... yesterday!

Don't forget about reducing energy and water usage as well. Commercial farming uses 20% of the petroleum intake of the US, and it uses 75% of the fresh water. Because most vertical farming plans center around hydroponics then the energy usage is less, the water usage is about 5% to 10% of commercial farming, and the output per acre of land is multiplied.

[Uncle Joe]

181. Yes I do agree with your post, vertical farms should be in the mix, I also believe

the growing urban implementation of vertical farms could have a cooling effect on our heat island, concrete, steel and glass cities.

[txlibdem]

184. That's another benefit I hadn't thought of

It would definitely bring some much-needed color and interest to the skyline as well.

[Chan790]

97. Japan and ROK as well.

Maybe Malaysia and Singapore.

But yes, the areas of greatest need are the places where they're less-likely to be built.

[robinlynne]

119. they already are. they are building entire cities which are sustainable.

There is an American designer/architect who is creating entire cities off the grid. rainwater collection, rooftop farms, solar energy. It IS happening. Alos look at Detroit!!! google urbanroots. Look at the trialer for the film about the changes in Detroit. this is HAppening now. It just isn't getting mainstream coverage.
In SAn francisco a firm is taking dog poo from dog parks and turning it into methane gas. Another firm has created solar garbage compactors. Id ont know which cities theya re in. the idea is that with solar energy, the garbage placed in the public bins are compacted. Then you don't need trucks to come by to collect the waste very often. the cost, zero. solar. the savings huge. less oil used. less trucks running around.

[Laluchacontinua]

161. What is this "sustainable" you keep talking about? No city is "sustainable," if by sustainable you

mean can sustain itself independent of outside inputs.

Nor has any city ever been sustainable, nor will any city ever be sustainable by that definition.

[robinlynne]

162. luckily, you are wrong. By sustainable I mena entirely not connected to the grid

, reusing all waste rpoduced, reclaiming water instead of wasting it, and using solar power for electricity instead of fossil fuels.

[Laluchacontinua]

163. show me this sustainable city you say exists and tell me where the water comes from,

where the materials for the buildings & solar panels come from, where the waste is processed, etc.

[robinlynne]

166. google it. there are 6 of them. An American designer designed them.

He was honored at the annual big bash for the 100 smartest people in the world, whatever it is called. The link probably came from DU, around 2 years ago.

[robinlynne]

169. Here is one from 2005.not the ones I was talking about. The

water comes from the yangtze river. but all water is recycled and reused for farming. people have this right down the block here on a smaller scale in LOs Angeles. It is called a black water garden. the garden is 100% fed by reusing water from the washing machine and sinks. No new water used to irrigate the garden.
so by googling sustainable cities china you wll find all the info.

[Laluchacontinua]

171. no one lives in that city. it's planned to be built from scratch on an island in the shanghai

metro area, using plenty of outside resources to cover an area iof 53 square miles in new construction and bring 500,000 peasants from the countryside to the metropolitan area to be cheap labor for chinese industry.

Water from the Yangtze is the same water used to water crops elsewhere. The people would use the same water wherever they lived -- probably less in the countryside.

The citizens living in your new construction will have an ecological footprint of 5.5 acres/2.2 hectares/person, which means that the area they occupy will not "sustain" them.

Not to mention that the new construction will likely destroy habitat for migrating birds:

Area: The city is planned to cover an area of approximately 86 km2. Today, the area is an important habitat for migrating birds and the city has not yet been realised.

Dongtan was planned to open, with accommodation for 10,000, in time for the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. By 2050 the city was expected to be one-third the size of Manhattan, with a total planned population of 500,000.<1><2><3> However no construction of the eco-city has taken place yet, so the project has fallen behind schedule.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongtan


Maybe no construction has taken place yet because this project is just another facet of China's real estate bubble which is building completely empty cities all around the country -- because it makes money for someone.


The main designers, Arup, are also taking part in many less environmentally-friendly projects in China, including airports and office blocks. Arup recently received the "Greenwasher of the Year Award" from Ethical Corporation Magazine for the most dubious green claim of the year, describing Dongtan as a Potemkin village.<8>


None of these chinese eco-cities, so far as i can tell, have any people in them & most are not even under construction.

this is the only chinese eco-city that seems to have built anything:

Huangbaiyu was conceived by William McDonough and Partners in conjunction with Tongji University in Shanghai, the Benxi Design Institute, and China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development. The town is being built in stages and is to be model of sustainable development using principles laid out by McDonough. His main thesis is that instead of trying to reduce waste you eliminate it by having everything be capable of being broken down into technical or biological nutrition that can be reused so that no waste is created and no waste needs to be disposed.
Construction

In April 2006, the project was encountering some difficulties: some housing was completed, but no residents had moved in.<2> By September 2006, 42 houses had been built.<3> The cost of each individual dwelling is estimated to be around 28,000 yuan (A$4,600).
Controversies

* Of the 42 completed houses, only three have used the hay and pressed-earth combination. The rest use hay and compressed bricks of coal-dust, triggering a debate over whether the coal dust represents a health risk.<1>

* Only one house has solar panels; the rest were built to burn timber but have now been modified to use gas from a biogassification plant that Huangbaiyu's village chief, Dai Xiaolong, built after buying the technology. None of the houses face south as originally planned because the building contractor changed the orientation to fit Feng Shui. Inexplicably, the new houses also have garages, although no villager can afford a car.<1>

* American anthropologist Shannon May was sponsored by computer-chip giant Intel to live in the village to monitor the transformation. But after more than a year, she is dismayed at the outcome and worried that to "save face", the village may continue to be promoted as sustainable and replicated elsewhere.<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangbaiyu

[robinlynne]

175. McDonough must be the designer I read about. Obviously corruption is

ruining the project city you describe. That is a terrible shame. That doesn't mean it is not viable and doable. Sustainable technology is absolutely here, ready, and available. The only reason it is not prevalent here in the US is the economic/political system. There are small movements of people doing it on their own.

[Laluchacontinua]

179. I asked you to show me a functioning eco-city, since you said they're functioning now,

building food skyscrapers now, etc.

"Small movements" of people CAN'T BUILD FOOD SKYSCRAPERS.

Which brings me back to my original point: who do you imagine is going to finance these things, and for what purpose?

[Withywindle]

164. We have some solar garbage bins in Chicago.

People seem to like them.

[waddirum]

127. How about existing (but vacant) skyscrapers and buildings

found all over the country? Let's first look at reuse of existing assets, rather than pouring new concrete.

[Laluchacontinua]

7. I don't see the point. The world already produces enough food for everyone, and

enough housing. Production isn't the problem.

No offense meant, but this kind of ill-thought-out vanity project (think of the labor needed to harvest all those tiny lettuce plants in little dishes) doesn't seem to me to add anything useful to the picture. Yeah, we can grow lettuce in skyscrapers. So what? The pictures remind me of the designs of that guy associated with the anti-Fed/Alex Jones folks, or the crazy sea cities the Arab billionaires are designing in the Gulf.

[Book Lover]

13. +1

Thanks for writing the post I thought of when I read the OP.

[lunatica]

31. If there's enough food then why are people starving?

It's because the food doesn't get to them. Something you don't have to worry about in this country, but what about the countries in Africa where droughts are quite severe? And that's just one of the issues with food in the world.

[NickB79]

45. So African nations are going to pony up the money to build these?

Really?

[lunatica]

54. WTF!

Developing countries as well as the US give billions of dollars to poor countries. All the time. What makes you think these countries wouldn't prefer to help them build these farms instead of spending billions reacting to famines after the fact?

[Laluchacontinua]

60. What makes you think that Africa can't grow its own food in the usual way instead of in skyscrapers?

Have you noticed that China & other countries are BUYING/TAKING land in africa to grow food on? But not for africans. I honestly don't mean to be rude but please do some research about the control of global food policy & the confluence of global politics and famine.

[lunatica]

68. This subject is not about who controls everything

It's about changing things. Lots of things, including who controls food or anything else.

[Laluchacontinua]

72. Why would you think that a food skyscraper would change who controls food?

African peasants don't build skyscrapers, and the starving people in Africa are mostly in the countryside, not the cities.

[robinlynne]

121. BULLSHIT. The entire point is local sustainability, whether in the US or anywhere.

here in the US our food is brought in from other countries and factory farms. Just look in your grocery store! Urban farming is an entirely new concept. A fantastic one. It totally changes the economics of food, making food healthier and more affordable and helpingIf food is produced in the cities for the cities, it will cost much less, be helathier, and be better for the planet.

[Laluchacontinua]

123. And why would you think that the people with the money to build a food skyscraper are interested

in local sustainability? They're the ones invested in economic concentration.

[robinlynne]

128. Why are you changing the conversation?

[Laluchacontinua]

136. I don't know what conversation you're talking about. The conversation about how great

food skyscrapers are? The conversation about how food skyscrapers are the solution to "feeding the world"? I disagree with the premises. Does that disallow me from the conversation?

You don't seem to get it. Poor countries in Africa have no *inherent* problems that would prevent them from being regionally self-sufficient in food production -- the problems are political, not inherently material. And the question "who is going to build your skyscraper"? is highly relevant to the discussion.

[NickB79]

66. Maybe because we already let them starve?

As it stands, aid to developing countries has been cut substantially around the world, with no sign of rebounding soon.

And the money we give them for famine relief is a drop in the bucket compared to what they'd need to build these towers.

[lunatica]

69. That's simply not true.

[Laluchacontinua]

73. It IS true. And food aid & the suppression of domestic agriculture & our fucking wars

& theft of resources are the primary methods we use.

The only use for this skyscraper thing would be to feed yuppies if domestic unrest broke out in the countryside.

[NickB79]

122. Truth is the half-million dead Somalians we just let starve to death

And that's just ONE example.

[JI7]

126. no, it was the terrorists who let them starve to death

they are making it tougher for aid workers to get in and provide aid. and certain govts and others who are given the food and other aid don't always give it to the people.

now they are making it tough even for Kenya .

[Laluchacontinua]

59. Yes, & so how does growing lettuce in a skyscraper get food to them?

Why do you think that the same rich fucks that control the food supply are going to build a skyscraper to grow lettuce for the poor?

The food doesn't get to people -- in a nutshell -- because global food policy, land, & production decisions are controlled by an oligarchy.

[txlibdem]

182. They don't just grow lettuce

Why would the oligarchs build these vertical farm skyscrapers? They wouldn't. Maybe we should step up and help build them as part of a volunteer organization. Or perhaps the UN should make that part of their mission... or some other NGO. Who knows. But the benefits far outweigh the downside costs.

Maybe they don't need a 30-story building but instead six 5-story buildings since land isn't a premium.

[lunatica]

29. Except not everyone gets the food. I'm sure you've heard of the famines in Africa

Building hydroponic self-sustaining farms in countries that experience above normal droughts would solve that problem.

[wickerwoman]

38. It decreases the building footprint

which lessens the impact of stormwater runoff on streams and decreases erosion compared with horizontal farms.

It also improves air quality for the people living or working in the building and, depending on the design, can also help reduce electricity bills from heating and air conditioning because the leaves provide shade in the summer but fall away in the winter allowing the building to retain the heat from the sun better.

And it provides locally produced food that doesn't need to be shipped in increasing resilience to oil price shocks.

[Laluchacontinua]

62. Decreases the building footprint? How so?

If people are living & working in the building as well, how much produce is going to be grown?

Locally produced food can be grown in greater volume on regular farms. Or in people's windows & yards in the city.

[wickerwoman]

79. Let's say you have a 30 story building

that's 100x100 feet with 10 foot high stories (just to keep the math simple). Each of the four facades of the building is 30,000 square feet + 10,000 ft2 for the roof giving you approximately 130,000 square feet on which you could theoretically grow crops. Obviously it's less than this, but it's probably something in the neighborhood.

If you had a 130,000 square foot farm it would be relatively difficult to keep it under cultivation constantly and when it wasn't being cultivated it would be subject to erosion from wind and heavy storms. But if you put the same farm in a building with a 10,000 ft2 footprint and then plant trees or otherwise design permiculture gardens for the remaining 120,000 ft2 around the building, you've increased permeable surfaces, creating a much more pleasant environment that is less subject to erosion and which can support more diverse ecosystems.

Many people have balconies now in their apartments now and a lot of new buildings have green roofs. If you could plant a real garden on your balcony you would still be able to live and/or work inside. You'd just have a much more pleasant exterior to go out to. You're basically just taking a normal building and putting a greenhouse around it or allowing people to stack their gardens on top of each other. Depending on the climate, I'm sure you could grow a surprising amount of whatever you wanted to.

Yes, food can be grown in high volumes on regular farms, but then you have to use oil to get the food from the farm to the person. And if something happens to the farm, or to the transportation system, you can't get the food to the people. Monocultures increase vulnerability and ensure that when something does go wrong it goes really, really wrong.

A building like this functions as a supplemental backup system. It's not intended to replace conventional farming, but to improve food security, reduce oil dependance, make better use of the land available, create a more attractive living environment, reduce air pollution and lower the damage done by stormwater runoff.

[lunatica]

80. Thanks for that input!

And people would be needed to run the entire system. These would create jobs. Janitorial, engineering, grounds keepers, building and systems maintenance, cultivation, seedling growth, harvesters and much more.

[Laluchacontinua]

88. So this building isn't using the same inputs as growing the same food in dirt would?

The water etc. doesn't have to be dealt with through city sewers etc?

We can grow grain & process it in these oil-free environments?

You're going to slaughter those animals running around in that shiny pleasant building?

Where does the chickenshit go?

Questions, questions.

[wickerwoman]

93. I didn't say it wasn't using some of the same inputs,

simply that it has other positive environmental impacts.

I also never said that it was an oil-free environment. Obviously there are embedded costs in the construction of the building. But once you build it, depending on the lifetime of the building and the materials used, it may be economical to grow food in a way that doesn't later require it to be transported hundreds (or thousands) of miles to the consumer. And that is a good in and of itself, regardless of whether it is more or less economical than traditional farming because it has the additional benefit of increasing food security.

In terms of water, less has to be dealt with in city sewers if the building has a smaller footprint and you can build swales or water treatment areas in the green spaces around the building which you freed up by going taller. And this has the added benefit of reducing electricity use because you don't have to pump water to treatment facilities that are miles off-site.

Many new buildings in Australia have their own water systems which are off the grid and are designed to conserve water use, collect and evenly distribute stormwater, etc. How the water is treated in this case would depend on the system installed in the building but in any case could hardly be more damaging than traditional farming methods in terms of contaminant discharges, erosion, compaction of the soil, etc.

You can grow grain as long as you shield it from the wind higher up. You can also process it wherever you like as long as you soundproof (and smellproof) industrial areas from residential and commerical areas. Or you can process food offsite. It's still uses less oil that transporting it from farms to processing centres to markets to consumers.

Chickenshit goes on the compost heap and then back into the system.

If you have questions, why don't you do a little research about rooftop gardening and agriculture (which is already being implemented in a number of places). There are about fifty gazillion good books, websites and videos on youtube on sustainable architecture, building design, technology and agriculture. Why not pick some of them up?

[Laluchacontinua]

124. There's no benefit to the food skyscraper that couldn't be achieved by people growing food in their

backyards, their windows, porches, roofs & on vacant lots.

The food skyscraper by its very nature implies concentrated capital. That's the problem with your vision.

Thanks for your recommendations on what I should study. But perhaps I have already done more research than you imagine.

[robinlynne]

120. I disagree. Food is trucked from country to country. Food grown locally means

less pettroleum consumption, less waste, less diseases. Having food shipped is completely different from local, organic farming. There is no comparison. It is giving someone a fish versus teaching them how to fish.

[Laluchacontinua]

125. Food is trucked from country to country because of the dictates of the economic oligarchy

who'd be building your food skyscraper.

If you think they're interested in local food, why don't you just ask them to quit shipping food from country to country?

[robinlynne]

129. Why do think there is an occupy movement all over the country? Ask them?

You mean DEMAND CHANGE, don't you?

[Laluchacontinua]

139. I repeat: who do you think is going to finance your skyscraper & give the

food to the poor?

Let's talk about the cost of big-city real estate & the cost of building a specialized skyscraper & which billionaire you think is going to front the money without demanding a return on investment?

[robinlynne]

130. Historically, asking the ruling group to change is not the way change happens.

[Laluchacontinua]

135. I don't think change happens by asking the ruling group to build food skyscrapers either.

You keep ignoring the point: who is going to finance this vision? And if someone is willing to finance it, why not just finance local agriculture?

And in what sense is a food skyscraper better than backyard/window/rooftop gardening? Why the love for the high-tech, most expensive "solution" to the problem you see?

Not to mention that you're not going to be growing a lot of grain (the calorie mainstay of the us population) in those skyscrapers.

[robinlynne]

153. because gowing vertically is possible in urban areas where there is not enough

land avialable to plant horizontally.
vertical farming is taking off all over the world already. even in rural areas. It uses less land (less expensive), and less water.

[Laluchacontinua]

172. it doesn't use less water. plants have the same water requirement whether vertical

or horizontal.

but it *does* use more technology and labor for less production.

[Capitalocracy]

131. We do now.

The population will keep growing, however. Not to mention all the other benefits mentioned in the other replies. At this point, even if we don't eat them, the more plants we grow the better, considering all the CO2 we've got floating around.

[Laluchacontinua]

137. You do realize that the PTB have been saying the same thing since Victorian times, right?

OMG, there's too many people & not enough food!!!!

This time we really mean it!!!!!

There's always been enough food. Food skyscrapers won't enable starving people to eat anymore than the green revolution did, anymore than gmos are, anymore than any other technological fix has. Because the problem isn't with production or technology.

You do realize that the US has actually taken land *out* of production, right? Because we can produce soooooo much that it drags prices (and profits) down.

[mattclearing]

140. Your post is uninformed.

FIrstly, the world's food production systems are horribly inefficient. They rely heavily on oil and oil-based chemicals, pesticides, etc., requiring food to be shipped long distances and thus increasing carbon output, not to mention the genetic modification that's used to facilitate these processes, which results in less healthy food and devastating environmental impacts.

This kind of urban farm has the potential to take transit, pesticides, and genetic modification out of our food production processes, while offsetting the heavy carbon impact of our cities.

That anyone would conflate this with Alex Jones or speculate that it is somehow more labor-intensive than the current models is depressing.

[txlibdem]

147. Good info, thanks

I just wanted to add that a vegetable or fruit picked long enough before it's ripe so that it can be put in a container and shipped thousands of miles DOES NOT have the same nutritional value of one that is picked when it is ripe and ready to be consumed. That is why food tastes like cardboard nowadays. When I grow tomatoes in my backyard they have FLAVOR; when I buy a tomato from the store it usually does not, or not as much.

That is a big difference and may have a positive impact on childhood obesity: if a veggie tastes good they might actually eat it instead of the prepared meals or fast food.

[XemaSab]

183. I can grow food in my back yard with no chemicals and a sack of manure once a year

Growing food in spaces like these would mean loads of chemicals to feed the plants, and probably quite a few chemicals to manage the kinds of infestations that plants in greenhouses are prone to.

I don't see how this is any kind of improvement on growing plants in soil.

[Uncle Joe]

9. This circular design would also be more aerodynamic which I believe would improve the building's

chance of surviving the expected increased severity of hurricanes from global warming climate change.



Thanks for the thread, lunatica.:thumbsup:

[lunatica]

14. Building could be made to rotate so all sides get direct sunlight

Thanks for being positive. I was beginning to get discouraged with all the negative responses.

Imagine we could let a lot of the land go back to being wild.

[FSogol]

19. and lower transportation costs for fresh veggies right in the city.

Fruit could be picked when ripe, not months in advance for shipping.

It could even be a co-op with families having their own inner city garden.

[Uncle Joe]

24. I believe with the increased development and usage of nano technology, you won't need to rotate

the building to get sunlight from all directions.

The energy will be able to flow from one side to the other and if need be out again.

[Voice for Peace]

35. don't be discouraged, this is a beautiful thing.

a lot of people are just plain cranky.

[Laluchacontinua]

65. A rotating building likely means the energy cost is higher than the food energy you'd get from it.

Farmland isn't the main reason for shrinkage of wild land -- suburbia & McMansion & mansions & vacation homes & ski areas, etc are.

[Confusious]

142. While I like the idea

Having a building rotate would be an engineering nightmare.

Easier to have windows and open spaces and direct the light with optics.

[Bluenorthwest]

144. They are already planning such buildings in Dubai, not for farming

just for 'fun'....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Tower

[Confusious]

165. Interesting

Reading the critism part though, we'll have to wait and see if if it doesn't fall down.

If you follow the link 'moving buildings' it says each apartment will sell for 3 million. With optics, that would probably be the cost for the whole building.

[Blue_Tires]

17. I *really* hate to play the fear card, but

I cannot think of a softer terrorist target...

Still, I like the idea and hope they go forward with it anyway

[lunatica]

21. Can you think of anything that couldn't be a target for terrorists?

If terrorists are going to stop you then what's the use of doing anything?

[Posteritatis]

49. How about every other large building in existence?

If people fearmongering about terrorist targets were right even a fraction of the time half the skyscrapers and every dam, power plant and prominently labelled orphanage on the planet would be a smoking ruin.

[ellisonz]

52. Those pesky terrorists ruin everything!

And especially sustainable living :sarcasm:

[soapboxtalk]

20. There's a much easier way

Why build huge expensive farms like this building...it would be much easier and cheaper to build floating hydoponic farms. They could use ion pumps to maintain perfect salinity and dissolved minerals, they could easily build solar panels, and they could float in the ocean.

We wouldn't have to worry about growing seasons...when it's winter simply have a tugboat haul the floating farms to the southern hemisphere.

The overwealming majority of earth is water...why not start using it to grow food?

[lunatica]

25. With skyscrapers the people working them can go home at night

But your idea is also a good one.

[Posteritatis]

50. Floating hydroponic farms on that scale somehow aren't huge or expensive? (nt)

[boston bean]

22. seeing the farm animals in a sky scraper is a bit bizarre...

but everything else looks good to me.

[Gregorian]

26. Why not just decrease world population? It solves all of the rest of the problems as well.

Why support something that is the root cause of all of our problems?

Carbon emissions, housing, medical, food, water, energy... All of it is directly related to the number of users. Ie, humans.

But then I'm just posting into the breeze. People don't like thinking about this subject. It's so negative. Such a downer.

[Uncle Joe]

33. As societies develop; it has the secondary effect of lowering the birth rate.

No one is suggesting that lowering the earth's population shouldn't be in the mix but the current model of nothing but dead, no use, concrete, steel and glass can't be considered to be the optimum model of efficiency by any stretch.

[lunatica]

36. You do know that we can do more than one thing at time don't you?

[Chan790]

109. Because it's impossible without draconian measures and forced sterilization.

It's the very sort of non-starter idea that needs to be taken out back like Old Yeller followed swiftly by anybody who proceeds to zombie-reassert it.

[Abin Sur]

151. How? Details, please.

[Ian David]

27. How will they get the cows way up there?

[lunatica]

37. Really?

C'mon. Really?

[Ian David]

74. I was kidding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8jGqdE2iw

[lunatica]

78. OK! LOL!

catapults!

[ellisonz]

53. Angel wings. n/t

[Posteritatis]

55. Fair trade trebuchets. (nt)

[ellisonz]

56. Fruitful Future Flingers. n/t

[Prometheus Bound]

57. Wings, man, wings! Haven't you ever heard of GM cows?

[sakabatou]

64. Red Bull

[pipi_k]

67. Oh, ye of little faith....

[FrodosPet]

76. That's easy!

Cowlevators.

[progressoid]

89. And most people won't want to live upwind from the cows

[elehhhhna]

118. push the building under them when they jump over the moon, silly.

[WCGreen]

30. This was featured heavily in the History Channels show 2100....

It was pretty cool stuff...

[Liberal_in_LA]

34. that certainly would be pretty to look at

[Roland99]

40. Looks like something Walt Disney would have concocted for his E.P.C.O.T.

[KG]

41. rec.

:thumbsup:

[in_cog_ni_to]

43. K&R! Very cool ideas here! n/t

[femrap]

47. K and R

very cool.

[Xicano]

48. K&R

Thanks for posting lunatica.

[jwirr]

51. This should be tested out immediately in the Horn of Africa.

[JVS]

58. It would be a lot easier to use the large buildings for apartment blocks and use...

land for farming.

[lunatica]

71. Some of the designs have them being used for both

It would be nice to see a lot of the land going back to being wild.

[txlibdem]

149. That defeats the entire purpose of vertical farming

What's wrong with having crops growing outside? Pests, drought, fungi and weeds, it requires too much water, oil is needed to make chemical fertilizers and transport crops to the cities, etc.

Especially in parts of Africa where access to drinking water is less, these vertical farms would be a great idea. The best part is that one could farm 365 days per year, not just during the "growing season."

[booley]

61. Still a lot of technical problems

For instance, lots of crops that provide staples to most people's diets, like grains, won't seem to work in these.

There's also the CO2 and pesticide build up since these buildings are not hermetically sealed. And there are other issues.

I am not saying this can't be done. I would dearly love to see a working vertical garden that is practical and affordable.

But before we build them, we need to make them work.

[lunatica]

70. So isn't that understood?

I certainly understand it. I'm sure most people get it that things need to be practical and affordable. Unless they're Republicans who think they and their buddies ought to hold onto all the money because, well, every solution is just too expensive.

[txlibdem]

150. Unfortunately you are wrong about everything in your post

1. Grains can't be grown? Where did you get that idea??? The fact is that grains grow in hydroponics very well. And dwarf varieties can be stacked in the same room to increase yields even further.

2. CO2 and pesticide build up? Wrong. Pesticide runoff is a problem caused by dirt farming, not by vertical farming. And CO2??? What do you think an entire building full of plants would do to CO2 levels. Decrease them, that's what.

3. Before we build them we need to make them work. Exactly right. There are now 5 vertical farms around the world, and another possible to be built in America. These will serve as testing facilities to make sure that the techniques are the most efficient and yields are highest while maintaining the food nutrition content.

[txlibdem]

159. Dwarf grains specifically for use in spacecraft with hydroponics

"SELECTION AND BREEDING OF DWARF CROPS The Crop Physiology Laboratory has a long history of identifying, characterizing, and hybridizing "Super-Dwarf" germplasm of the crop plants. In 1996, we released "USU-Apogee" an early maturing, dwarf wheat plant developed for use in the confined environments of spacecraft. "USU-Apogee" wheat was grown to maturity on the Russian space station MIR in 1998, and was used in a series of studies on the International Space Station in 2002. We recently completed the development of a new wheat cultivar, "USU-Perigee", which has a similar yield to "USU-Apogee", but is only half as tall (25 vs. 45 cm tall)."

http://www.usu.edu/cpl/research_dwarf.htm

PS, 25 cm is about 0.82 feet tall (a little less than 10 inches).

You might think that making a wheat plant shorter would be a bad thing, right? Wrong:

"Dwarfing is an important agronomic quality for wheat; dwarf plants produce thick stems. The cultivars Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. Taller wheat grasses better compete for sunlight, but tend to collapse under the weight of the extra grain—a trait called lodging— from the rapid growth spurts induced by nitrogen fertilizer Borlaug used in the poor soil. To prevent this, he bred wheat to favor shorter, stronger stalks that could better support larger seed heads. In 1953, he acquired a Japanese dwarf variety of wheat called Norin 10 developed by Orville Vogel, that had been crossed with a high-yielding American cultivar called Brevor 14.<18> Norin 10/Brevor is semi-dwarf (one-half to two-thirds the height of standard varieties) and produces more stalks and thus more heads of grain per plant. Also, larger amounts of assimilate were partitioned into the actual grains, further increasing the yield."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug#Dwarfing

There are several hydroponic systems on the market that will make great use of the shorter varieties of wheat. This is but one of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURY89IHOoY&feature=related

It shows that 8 wheat plants of the "Apogee" variety can be stacked on top of one another.

Here's another example of "stacking" that uses aeroponics, a method where nutrient-rich water is sprayed onto plant roots. http://aerofarms.com/why/technology/ The height of each level can be adjusted and it makes harvesting easy. There could easily be 8 or 9 stacks of Apogee wheat.

What stacking means is that each floor of a building can produce as much as a 9 story building. If you have a building 240 feet wide by 240 feet long (1 acre) with a 10 story vertical farm then you have, in effect, a 90 acre growing area.

And vertical farming is indoor farming so there is no "growing season" -- growing is year round. Here is a comparison of a crop grown outside, in a regular greenhouse, and in the AeroFarms system:
http://aerofarms.com/why/comparison/ -- which shows that plants grow much faster as well, this means more crops per year:
"Growth Cycle 35 – 70 days -vs- 25 – 50 days -vs- 18 – 21 days"

So you have, with this example plant, instead of 2 crops per year and 1 acre of crops, we'd have 90 acres and 17 crops per year, thus the comparison: 2 acres worth versus 1,530 acres worth -- all in that same 1 acre plot of land.

[Leopolds Ghost]

63. Here's my question: If the world's population doubles, How do we expect the world's wealth to double

to keep pace?

Has it since the sixties,

Or have we been simply drawing more and more resources from the Third World to keep pace with living standards due to population growth at home?

[kayakjohnny]

75. This reminded me of something from a few years back.....

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/11759/spiral-garden-by-benet-saida-dalmau-anna-julibert-carmen-vilar-iida-awards-2010.html

[lunatica]

77. That's cool!

A little imagination and beautiful things happen

[kayakjohnny]

81. Yes, thanks. Your post inspired me to do a search.

It took some doing. I tried many search words, but there it was.

First saw it maybe two years ago.

Didn't have it save, but found it for you.

Thanks a lot for this post of yours.

[NYC_SKP]

82. Are those cows? Did I see a picture featuring COWS??? Um, that's just silly...

Big advocate here for vertical farming, we even have vertical gardens at work and are building a vertical ecosystem.

But cows don't fit in a sustainable world, not cows for food, and I'm not too keen on cows for grazing or for pets.

Cows as part of a compact sustainable low-impact food solution.

Nope. Sorry.



..

..

[lunatica]

84. Is that a photo of your vertical garden at work?

That's really cool!

[NYC_SKP]

91. Almost, it's called a Solar Curve and it's the model for one we are building.

It has an aquarium and vegetation and the runoff of the vegetation water feeds the fish and the fish poo fertilizes the plants and the solar modules power the circulation pumps!

:bounce:

[lunatica]

101. That way beyond cool. It's downright ingenious.

[txlibdem]

152. Love it!

The only thing missing is scale. It could be made the size of a building... just kidding.

I love it!

[Moostache]

83. Better hope the Chinese are doing the research....

We can't get revenue increases to fix roads and bridges that are literally crumbling before our eyes...

The Plutocratic States of America are NEVER going to lead the world in key research of this magnitude again.
We simply have too many people in this country that care more about who their neighbors are sleeping with and how to ever get them to stop voting against human interests.

I really wish the Soviet Union had never collapsed and was doing this on a wide scale outside of Moscow right now...maybe, MAYBE, then we would have had enough gumption to unfuck our nation and actually pursue worthwhile pursuits again.

[themadstork]

141. So in other countries people don't care about who their neighbor sleeps with?

[bluestate10]

85. But, But...

It isn't "natural' farming. Greens would never put a fork in produce from those factory farms. But great idea. It would actually solve hunger problems.

[Terry in Austin]

86. Nice to dream

However, I have to voice a certain amount of skepticism about whether it would scale up to "feeding the world".

With fossil fuels depleting and alternates only able to replace a fraction of the energy, it seems like a stretch to plan on directing enough of it to build and maintain a sizable fleet of high-tech food skyscrapers.

I assume the proposal includes the arithmetic for how many would be needed. I just don't see it penciling out to anything feasible.

Effective solutions can be a lot more humble.

[lunatica]

87. In time it would feed the world

When every country can invest in these farms the need for fossil fuels will fall. It will happen with every vertical farm and become more widespread as the farms proliferate. Produce will not need to be trucked across the country because your city can have any number of these where you can go to the built in store and buy fresh produce every day.
Things can be grown until they're ripe and then harvested and sold in the ground level supermarket right away. With the ability to control temperature no matter what the weather is like outside these vertical farms food can be grown all year. And as it's seen to have a wide range of effects on other problems we have, such as the need for fossil fuels for transporting.

And each vertical farm would have to have an army of people to work in it, from actual agriculture employees to start seedling, grow, maintain and harvest the food, to engineers maintaining the machinery, electricians, hydroponic specialists, janitorial services and clerks selling the food to the community at the local supermarket.

[Terry in Austin]

155. In time we're all dead. Not enough time, not enough energy.

All the "replacements" for fossil fuels might, in time, provide 20% of the energy we now have with fossil fuels. Meanwhile, we're looking at 4% to 8% annual oil depletion rates by 2020. How fast are these skyscrapers going to get built before cranes get scarce and cement kilns and steel mills start shutting down?

Do you have any idea of the sheer scale of a program to build and operate these facilities worldwide? These things won't just proliferate on their own without huge amounts of energy and capital. How soon do you think we'd see them in Lagos, Dhaka, Karachi, Manila? We might see a few in the more privileged parts of the world, but the world is very big.

I think your optimism and energy can be better placed.

[Odin2005]

90. That is totall awsomeness. I see it's pissed the Luddites off, though.

It LOOKS awesome, too!

The open-range cows are a nice touch!

[Nye Bevan]

92. This is very cool. I love this kind of ingenuity. Disappointing how many naysayers are here (nt)

[Fire Walk With Me]

95. We'll do it without them, then welcome them after proving it can be done.

[DCBob]

94. gucci food.

The cost of growing food this way would be very very high.. fertilizer, water, soil, pest control, labor, dealling with waste, maintenance of the facility, etc would be much higher than a traditional farm. Only the rich could afford to buy this gucci food. Its a fantasy.

[lunatica]

103. You're wrong. These farms would be self sustainable

And the cost of growing food that dies in droughts or gets riddled with plight or needs to be transported hundreds if not thousands of miles is minimal in your view? How about food that can only be grown in the Summer?

All of those things would be done away with.

Sometimes the big picture makes much more sense than getting bogged down in the 'can't' factor. Going to the moon was also expensive, yet many useful things have come from it.

[DCBob]

133. I suspect you have never worked on a farm or nursery or greenhouse.

Growing stuff on a large scale is complicated, input intensive, and requires lots of labor and/or big expensive machinery. There are numerous problems with the concept of skyscraper farms but probably the most difficult would be dealing with water. Plants require large amounts of water to thrive and in a vertical farm the requirement would increase many-fold per sq foot of horizontal space meaning typical rainfall per that space would be totally inadequate even if there was system to collect and store the excess. So some supplemental source would be needed. Drilling a well is a possibility in some cases but not all areas have water available underground... besides it would still be expensive pumping the water to all the levels of the farm. The other option would be city water which would be even more expensive.

There might be some situations where this could work practically but it would be limited. This is not the solution to world hunger.. at least in our lifetime.

[Laluchacontinua]

138. what do you mean by "self-sustainable"? About 50% of american's calories

come from grains, do you propose to grow, harvest & process them in your oil-less skyscrapers?

or is your vision that we shall all eat lettuce grown in plastic coffee-cup lids, with artificial soil & piped water & fertilizer?

I keep asking:

-Who will finance them?
-What's the plan to deal with the inputs and outputs?
-If there are animals involved, where does the shit go? Do you process it in your shiny building?
-Where's the compost pile (since there's always some kind of non-usable portion when you grow vegetables, for example root systems.)
etc.
If you want to grow vegetables in the city, why build a whole high-tech skyscraper to do it, why not just do it in the usual manner -- unused lots, windows, roofs, backyards, etc. Is there really some important advantage to building a specialized skyscraper?
-Since vegetables are a minor portion of the US diet, calorie-wise, how much oil will really be saved? Where are your fruit trees, berry vines, grain fields, milking operations, olive trees, etc?

I see a very expensive, inefficient & resource-heavy way to grow lettuce, greens, herbs and small plants that don't spread out much.

Since no one will answer my questions, i don't think they thought it out very well.

[txlibdem]

154. Don't let the 'niggling nabobs of negativity' get you down - thanks for posting this!

I think it's a great idea.

PS, there are 5 vertical farms in operation or in construction around the world right now, per the verticalfarm.com website.

[Lucian]

96. Yeah, one missile to those things and they're destroyed.

No thanks. No thanks.

[pipi_k]

102. And, depending on their location...

One hurricane.

One decent sized tornado.

A freak freeze.

The one in the water...one tsunami.


But, I suppose in Fantasy World, things like that never happen. And anyone who brings up the possibility is just a big old party pooper. An evil burster of balloons.


I don't understand why spending billions upon billions of dollars is necessary when one very simple answer is to slow down or reverse the population growth.

What is the attraction people have for adding an ever-increasing number of human beings to the planet? Are people that lonely?

[lunatica]

105. Can you explain how controlling population growth is a simple answer

How does one go about doing that exactly?

[pipi_k]

110. Seriously?

Education.

Free distribution of birth control, especially to people in Third World countries.

Voting out politicians who don't believe in birth control (or Freedom of Choice for women).

An acknowledgement of the problem from other world leaders, and some measure of cooperation.

And I know I'll take some heat for this one, but I don't care...mandatory sterilization of people who run around indiscriminately having child after child they can't support. Like men who have kids with five different women they're not married to.

I'm sure there are other ways I haven't thought of, and I'll probably get a big "thumbs down" for even proposing such things, but clearly something has to be done.

If we don't do something, then Mother Nature WILL. And it won't be pretty.

[lunatica]

111. My point is about the 'simple' part of your statement

There's nothing even remotely 'simple' about getting billions of people to cut down on having children. And sterilizing billions of people would never be simple either.

But I agree with you that education and leadership would help. It will never be simple though.

[Bluenorthwest]

145. So you claim that mass, global forced sterilization is a 'simple

solution'? Wow. Just wow. Simple? Arrests, medical prisons, forced surgeries....so simple. Just disgusting.
Do you claim the US should impose this on the world, or what? Forced surgery will require, well, force. Violence, war to impose this regime that most humans would find repulsive.

[Lucian]

115. Or that I live in constant fear.

:eyes:

Before those things can be made, you have to figure out all of the potential hazards of having them.

And I advocate for less people in the world, not more.

[lunatica]

104. Living in constant fear must be hard

That's really sad.

[Lucian]

114. I'm not living in fear.

If we're ever in a war, or we have enemies, those things could be destroyed so easily and we'll lose our food.

That's not fear. That's reality.

[lunatica]

116. Objecting to innovations that could feed billlions of people on the basis

that our enemies can destroy them is indeed living in fear and actually quite unrealistic.

[Lucian]

117. Expecting those things to thrive and feed billions...

is quite unrealistic.

Population control is the key. Not skyscraper farms.

[JoeyT]

98. Hydroponically grown produce could work this way.

The one with the cows is ridiculous. That "field" they have those cows in might support one cow for few weeks. Until it wandered off the edge, anyway.

With hydroponics, you can grow an unbelievable amount of food in a really small space. Planting and harvesting would be labor intensive, but everything in between could be automated.

[lunatica]

106. Labor intensive means people would have jobs doesn't it?

[Tsiyu]

99. interesting

everyone with a green thumb should experiment this winter


Remember, they said the car would never replace the horse....

[canetoad]

100. Joke

Looks like 4th Yr Arch student submission. Urban hobby farming for those with a guilt complex over how fucking little they are doing to assist the planet.

Sustainable farming does not rely on chemical nutrients and a neverending supply of water.

[Le Taz Hot]

107. I've been obsessed with the sustainable living movement

the last few years (out of interest and necessity) and I just LOVE articles like this. It really is amazing how much food you can grow in really small spaces and I LOVE the rainwater capture and recycle idea. Anyway, thanks for the article.

[lunatica]

108. I've been very excited about this for years too

If somewhere in the world someone would start this and prove its viability it would grow.

I imagine big cities all over the world becoming self sufficient as far as food is concerned by having building like this for every dozens of blocks. It would create jobs too. Everything from engineering to growing the food. Building like these would need plenty of workers in them.

[The Doctor.]

112. It's inevitable.

And an old idea whose time has come.

[lunatica]

113. I hope you're right. This may be the time for that idea to take off.

[RainDog]

134. k&r n/t

[and-justice-for-all]

148. Awsome...nt

[txlibdem]

156. Talk about VERTICAL. What if each floor of the skyscraper had one of these?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURY89IHOoY&feature=related

Stacking systems similar to this will help to increase yields of the vertical farm dramatically. Must watch video

[humus]

157. fortune of the land

To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth,
into the hands of people who do not live on it and share its fate will
always be an error. For whatever determines the fortune of the land
determines also the fortune of the people.
--Wendell Berry

They claim this Mother Earth of ours for their own and fence their
neighbors away from them... They compel the natural earth to produce more
excessively and when it fails, they force it to take medicine to produce
more. This is evil.
--Sitting Bull 1877

It takes a rich land to support a democracy. Every time you see a dust
cloud, or a muddy stream, a field scarred by erosion or a channel
choked with silt, you are witnessing the passing of democracy. The crop
called man can wither like any other.
--Sterling North

When the land begins to be regarded, not as the primary source of
wealth, but as the plaything of gentlemen already rich, the economy of the
country is in questionable, if not dangerous condition.
--Gerald W. Johnson


Community isn't a sentiment. It has to do with necessity, with people
needing each other. If you allow the larger industrial system to
remove the pattern of needs, which is the force holding people together, you
lose the community.
--Wendell Berry


Not all landscapes should be inhabited by human beings, but each of us
is enriched to the extent that we can belong to, and participate in, a
well-ordered human community integrated into the natural landscape of a
particular place.
-- William Vitek



It is appallingly obvious that our technology exceeds our humanity.
-- Albert Einstein


The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
-- Niels Bohr


How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee;
kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch
whenever you bloody well feel like it.
-- Ed Abbey


To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
-Mahatma Gandhi

[txlibdem]

158. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive

--- "The Professor" Gilligan's Island

[Laluchacontinua]

173. That is a system which probably uses more in inputs than it produces in food energy.

1. The plants are rooted in what looks almost like plastic coffee cup lids and aren't able to reach full growth -- my backyard chard, for example, grown without any chemical inputs at all & no care, is at least 3 times that size. All those plants are small, not even enough for a single salad.



2. They're fed by (pumped) water containing fertilizer mix (made by chemical processes in factories). The fertilized water is changed daily and the waste water requires the same kind of processing that water in any agricultural operation does.

3. The rotation of the "beds" requires power.

4. The whole system is run by a computer (more power).

5. All the little plastic dohickeys that are used to produce minimal amounts of actual food.

6. Waste materials from the plants themselves (like root systems) are sheer waste. No way to compost in this system, no way to return the waste energy to soil.


The zookeeper says isn't it great, we can give them their missing nutrients in food instead of "chemical made supplements" by adjusting the nutrients in the plants. Um, what's in that fertilizer mix other than "chemical made supplements"?

Boy, that seems like a convoluted way to give vitamins to monkeys.

[yurbud]

160. we can already feed the world if ag giants and our crop subsidies didn't put Third World farmers out

of business.

But I'd like to live in a city with these farm towers next door.

[KittyWampus]

167. Gorgeous, inspiring, Creative. Sci-Fi movies need to start pushing this concept.

[flvegan]

170. If we all stopped (or vastly reduced) eating meat, we already could.

:popcorn:

That said, I like the idea. I like the rooftop gardens that some places are doing already as well.

[txlibdem]

176. My wife and I have done just that

She hasn't had more than a nibble of beef in perhaps 3 years, she drastically reduced her consumption of pork as well.

We mostly eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains but chicken, turkey, and fish are still fair game.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

174. You don't need that to feed the world,

It would however be helpful if the white westerners who demand the developing world maintain neolithic agricultural practices would find another cause where they might do less harm.

[txlibdem]

178. If we don't need vertical farms then how will we feed the people with global climate change near?

Or here already, depending on who you ask really.

Forcasted weather extremes, longer droughts, worse floods, stronger and more tornadoes, hurricanes and tropical storms, these are but a few of the things that people will face as they try to feed their families and their communities.

Then there are the pests that have heretofore been kept out of the formerly colder areas by the cold... when it is no longer cold.

What is the answer to the food and fresh water crisis that we all face, if not now then soon and for the rest of our lives.

[txlibdem]

180. Texas drought has caused an estimated $5.2 billion in crop and livestock losses

This year's drought in Texas has caused a record $5.2 billion in crop and livestock losses... so far. And the harvest season isn't over as of the writing of the following article:

LUBBOCK, Texas — The blistering drought in Texas has caused an estimated $5.2 billion in crop and livestock losses so far this agricultural season, a record figure likely to rise further, state officials said Wednesday.

Field surveys from November 2010 to Aug. 1 this year indicate livestock losses of $2.1 billion and crop losses of $3.1 billion in Texas.

...snip...

The previous record annual loss was $4.1 billion for the 2006 season, Texas agricultural officials said.

"This drought will have a lasting impact on Texas agriculture," said Travis Miller, an agronomist with the AgriLife Extension Service. "The most remarkable thing is the extent and the severity of the drought combined."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44177536/ns/weather/t/drought-so-far-cost-texas-farms-record-billion/
Note: The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Too bad Texas doesn't have a few vertical farming skyscrapers to soften the blow of these droughts... which are only going to get worse from here on out thanks to climate change.