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 nice idea in theory but, according to a 2013 French-made documentary, the average cost of the produce from such a farm would be about €12 per kilo.  If that is typical then vertical farming is clearly not going to be competitive.   The cost of buildings such as that above, especially 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 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.

CAR-PARK FARMING

The idea of growing food in cities where it is needed is very appealing, as it would save transportation costs.  But high-rise farming structures such as the one depicted above would be prohibitively expensive.   With LED lighting technology some plants can be grown hydroponically in windowless buildings or even underground but – if purpose-built – that might be just as costly to create as high-rise towers, given all the excavation work.  In most high-rise buildings the underground spaces that could be used for hydroponic farming are used for car parking and, since people are prepared to pay a lot more for parking than they are for veggies, we hit an immovable economic barrier.  Oasis Cities will have no need for car parking so their enormously expansive subterranean spaces will be looking for a good job..!