Vertical farm of the future..? 

  Dickson Despommier, a Canadian futurologist, has been promoting the concept of high-rise “vertical” farms within cities for many years.

Vertical faming is a very appealing idea in theory but, according to a 2013 French-made documentary, the average cost of the produce from such a farm would be about E12 per kilo.  It was not specified whether that price was ex-farm or retail – or even what fruit or vegetable – but if that sort of cost is anywhere near the truth, then vertical farms are clearly not going to be competitive.   The cost of buildings such as those above, especially if in a central city location, would be enormous and its easy to imagine how much more income could be extracted from renting offices and apartments than growing lettuce and tomatoes.  The big advantage of vertical farms – that they would occupy far less land and be close to the consumer – is negated by the economic reality that city land can be a thousand times more expensive per unit than rural farm land.

Subterranean Farming

The idea of growing food in cities is appealing, but high-rise structures such as depicted above are very expensive.   With LED lighting technology some plants can be grown in windowless buildings or even underground.  But underground growing spaces, if purpose-built, might be just as costly to create as high-rise towers, given all the expensive excavation work.   The expansive underground spaces that would be needed for such farming are usually used for car parking and, since people are prepared to pay a lot more for parking than they are for veggies, we hit an economic barrier EXCEPT…   

Oasis Cities will have deep foundations and, since there will be no need for a huge car park, these subterranean spaces will be looking for a good job

indoor vertical farm using pink artificial light