Posts Tagged: urban agriculture

31
Jul

2011

Sunday Morning Statshot with Nick Chu: Urban Chicken Farming

Now this is urban chicken farming! Image by flickr user quinn.anya

A quick look look at some stats that make urban chicken farming in your city work (or not):

Number of chickens raised annual for meat and eggs: 50 billion

Percentage of world’s poultry meat raised using intensive farming techniques: 74

Worldwide chicken to human ratio: 16:9

Number of varieties of domestic chickens: 150

Hours of sunlight chickens need to lay healthy eggs: 14

Number of eggs a hen can produce in a year: 300

Year chicken farming was banned in Toronto: 1983

Number of current Canadian cities permitting chicken farming: 6

In US: 86

Number of members on BackyardChicken.com: 19,000

Cost to buy a baby chick: $0.25

Egg laying hen: $25

Number of eggs laid per week per chicken: 7

Cost of building your own chicken coop: $150-250

Cost of buying your super trendy designer chicken coop to impress your other chicken farming friends: $3500

Time to recuperate cost of schmancy chicken coop assuming you have 3 chickens laying 21 eggs at week while a dozen eggs cost $3: 13 years (math below)

Avoiding the mess of slaughtering your own chickens cause you’re a city slicker who really doesn’t know much about raising and killing farm animals: Mobile Slaughterhouse

Cost per head: $75 (maybe a little less for chickens)

Eggs per week: 21 eggs x 52 weeks = 1092 eggs/year —-  Cost per egg: $3 / 12 eggs = $0.25/egg —- Cost of Chicken Coop: $3500 —- Number of eggs to make up for coop: $3500/$0.25 = 14,000 eggs  —- Time needed to recuperate recoup coop: 14,000 eggs/ 1092 eggs/year = 13 years



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

17
Jul

2011

Sunday Morning Statshot with Nick Chu: Urban Vertical Farming

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



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.