The Vertical Farm
Feeding the World in the 21st Century
By: Dr. Dickson Despommier
Published: October 12, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN-10: 0312611390
ISBN-13: 978-0312611392
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
"When farms are successfully moved to cities, we can convert significant amounts of farmland back into whatever ecosystem was there originally, simply by leaving it alone", writes speaker, lecturer, environmentalist, and former professor of microbiology and public health in environmental sciences at Columbia University, Dr. Dickson Despommier in his visionary and revolutionary book The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century. The author offers the concept of the urban based vertical farm as a self sustaining alternative to creating a secure global food supply for the future.
Dickson Despommier understands the severe challenges of pesticide use, soil degradation, crop loss, and dependence on fossil fuels. To meet these growing pressures, the author takes the radical step of moving the farm from the countryside, and into the city itself. With the ever expanding global urban population, and with those growing cities being the final destination for food, Dr. Despommier proposes moving food production to the ultimate consumers. The author believes that cities must produce their own food supplies, as he considers current agricultural systems to be unable to meet the demand. Basing his ideas on scarce resources, environmental concerns, and demographic projections, Dickson Despommier provides what is a viable solution for potential food shortages. By placing the growing of food under glass, and building upwards toward the sky, the urban vertical farm becomes a self sustaining source of food to supply the growing population of the world.
Dr. Dickson Despommier (photo left) points to additional benefits of urban based agriculture, beyond those of environmental and energy challenges. He writes that the wastes generated by urban dwellers can be recycled into the vertical farm. At the same time, water usage is reduced trough reuse of black and gray water for the growing plants. Through the reduction of urban waste and recycling of refuse, the health of the cities would also be improved with less disease and lower vermin numbers. The author extrapolates the growth of the world's population, and calculates that vastly more land area than is even available for cultivation, would be required for conventional agriculture. With the need for either more farmland, or for more intensive use of existing farmland, Dickson Despommier considers the lack of available resources to be a limiting factor. To make up the difference, or to replace current agricultural land entirely, the author considers the vertical, urban based farm to be the only workable alternative.
For me, the power of the book is the visionary approach taken by Dr. Dickson Despommier, as he shares his philosophy, scientific research, and engineering designs for the vertical farm proposal. Along with the theoretical framework, the author provides practical methods to turn the dream of an urban based agriculture into a reality. The author also addresses the critics of his concepts in a realistic and meaningful way. He points to the rapidly evolving conventional agricultural industry, and how it is bumping against environmental, technological, resource, and financial barriers. Even with expanded area under cultivation, and with dramatic yield increases, writes the author, the existing global agricultural industry will fail to produce enough food in a sustainable manner.
Even more controversial than the proposed limits to production, is Dr. Dickson Despommier's proposal to return agricultural land to a native state. The author points out how 70 percent of the world's fresh water is used for agriculture. To Dr. Dickson Despommier, that is an unsustainable amount, and the precursor to an environmental disaster. His urban agricultural vision uses much less water, and recycles its use back into the vertical farm's ecosystem. The saving in energy is considerable, according to the author, especially in light of Peak Oil and other resource limitations. The reduction in pesticides and the lower number of food miles present energy savings that can be applied elsewhere. The author also considers the vertical farm to be a source of future employment, a remover of urban wastes, a technique to reduce crop losses, as well as a source of safer food.
I highly recommend the innovative and seminal book The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century by Dr. Dickson Despommier, to anyone seeking a viable, and ingenious solution to global food security. The reader might not agree with all of the author's premises or conclusions, but the book provides an excellent starting point for discussion. The future of the family farm, the role of corporations, and the benefits of the urban based vertical farm must all be considered. The author provides a backdrop of environmental degradation, an exploding world population, resource shortages, and the need for more land area for conventional agriculture, when he offers his vertical solution.
Read the important and paradigm shifting book The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century by Dr. Dickson Despommier, and consider the advantages and potential drawbacks of the vertical farm. The author shares a compelling case that the vertical farm will meet the food challenges of the 21st century. from the viewpoint of the author, it may even be the only way to feed a hungry world.
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