Vertical Farms

What it is about


Vertical Farms are self-reliant biotowers, used to grow organic food in urban areas. They were born eight years ago as a project of Dickson Despommier, an Environmental Sciences professor.
According to the US professor, Vertical Farms lend themselves to be an excellent means by which to achieve food self-sufficiency.
They allow to abandon intensive agricolture, therefore giving land back to forest and renewing the role of land as Earth’s “green lung” able to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Benefits


The main advantages of Vertical Farms are an annual production that continues regardless of the weather that would allow a greater availability of food, the increase in usable space saving vertical flat surface and the absence of pesticides and fertilizers so as to ensure more natural crops.
Besides, the use of Vertical Farms would also convert the waste water in a nourishment for plants, would create new job opportunities, would give abandoned buildings a new life and would drastically reduce the use of fuel normally used by farm machinery and means of transport.

Close to us


Skyland, a project for an Italian Vertical Farm, has been designed by ENEA and will be presented at EXPO 2015.
The building will consist of a hybrid space which will alternate domestic spaces and rooms used for agriculture that are expected to produce organic food for about twenty thousand people, which will then be sold in the mall within the building itself.
Skyland will have zero impact: the waste produced during cultivation will be used for the production of clean energy, generated by their combustion. The energy produced will be made available for lighting the building, so creating a self-sustaining renewable energy system.