17
Jul

2011

Sunday Morning Statshot with Nick Chu: Urban Vertical Farming

Post by Gondola Project

Proponents argue urban farming can reduce carbon emissions, but are growing crops in a city a baaaaa-d idea to start with? Photo by flickr user twenty_questions

A quick look at some of the things that make Urban Vertical Farming in your city work (or not):

Average distance ingredient in a meal in US is grown away from home: 1500 miles

Amount of energy global industrial food system accounts for in worldwide fossil fuel consumption: 21%

Number of farmer markets in US in 1993: 1755

Number of farmer markets in US in 2002: 3100

Percentage of food sales: 0.3%

Number of times more carbon dioxide released by transport of conventional produce versus regional/local produce: 5-17

Projected population by 2050: 9.5 billion

Additional land required to feed extra 2.7 billion people: Land mass of Brazil

Percentage increase in food production required by 2050: 70

Potential solution: Vertical farming

Numbers of acres of food a 30 story vertical farm can produce: 2400

Number of people a 19 story vertical farm could feed: 50,000

Number of acres of wheat in US: 53 million

Number of times more electricity needed to produce a year’s worth of US wheat via vertical farming: 8x total electricity generated in the US

For corn: 40x total electricity generated

Monetary worth of a farmer’s land per square foot: $1

Skyscraper: $200

Tons of carbon dioxide produced per US household due to food consumption: 8.9

Percentage of total carbon dioxide released due to food delivery: 4.5%

Number of days in jail for planting veggies in your front yard: 90



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Sunday Statshot
8
Comments

Comments

  1. joe bertino
    July 17, 2011 – 2:56 pm
    Hey there, this is a ton of great information. I'd love to reference this post, but curious as the source(s)?
  2. Jake
    July 17, 2011 – 6:33 pm
    If you have an opportunity try visiting TerraSphere Systems’ website, http://terraspheresystems.com/, they are currently in business with Vertical farms up and running in Canada and their website is very informative (Watch the “Two Seeds, Two Stories” video). Also visit another company I have been researching, Converted Organics http://convertedorganics.com/, they produce organic fertilizer by using food waste that is composted in a weeks time. Converted Organics and Terrashpere recently announced that they will be building a vertical farm in Rhode Island. I am not affiliate with Terrasphere, just thought you might want to take a look.
  3. NickChu
    July 17, 2011 – 8:21 pm
    @ joe bertino: if you click on the stat on each line, it will take u to the source. @ Jake: vertical farms in canada? i gotta see this.. do u know where they've set some up?
  4. Guenther ecker
    July 17, 2011 – 11:29 pm
    --> >>Additional land required to feed extra 2.7 billion people: Land mass of Brazil<< To feed extra 2,7 billion people with meat OR ONLY wheat OR meat and wheat ? Or Burgers? Average american food or average chinese food ?
  5. Guenther ecker
    July 18, 2011 – 5:32 am
    About food production have a look to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5vQpBRjCk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH72ssqdhXI But its not only the food production. When the state builds highways, the money lacks to reduce number of students in school classes, the money lacks to bring the students a better education, and so on. Who sows highways, who will harves car-traffic (and car-jams). We need more public transportation. And cable propelled transit is one of the possibilities.
  6. Guenther ecker
    July 18, 2011 – 9:17 am
    Delete my second 2 comments, if you want. It's better to write about traffic, but for what these wrong numbers about food production?
  7. NickChu
    July 18, 2011 – 11:38 am
    Judging from the quote below, I'd say churrasco: "Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock—an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land—2.1 billion acres—if farming continues to be practiced as it is today." Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-rise-of-vertical-farms
  8. Rudolf Rudig
    February 17, 2013 – 11:46 pm
    hrough the ages man has been in cultivation. The Early man lived on cultivating the land around him. Most people had huge lands under cultivation. As the years passed, different kinds of building came around. People started to build houses in one area and various kinds of businesses came into existence. In this process people started to cut down trees. Due to this fact we know in many countries the agricultural output has also decreased. For who people who still cultivate agriculture, the land for cultivation has significantly decreased. Not only this with the increase in population, people need more places to stay. . My very own blog page <'http://www.foodsupplementcenter.com/red-clover-tea/

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