The Future Of Farming Is Rising Up Among Urban Center Skyscrapers
Picture your life 30 years from now. How are you getting around? Maybe instead of sitting in traffic for 30 minutes, you’ll use that time to commute 300 miles in a pod. Maybe you’ll take your kids to school in a self-driving car. Even if commuting pods and driverless cars are the norm in 30 years, the technology will still be evolving.
What about how you’ll eat in 30 years? We’re not just talking about how you’ll earn money to put food on the table. Where will the food on your table actually come from?
What we consume — and how we are able to consume it — is rapidly changing. 200 years ago, more than half of the U.S. population lived on farms and produced their own food. Now, about 2% of the population produces the food the rest of the world consumes. But with the population growing, how are we going to sustainably produce enough healthy food? What does the future of farming even look like?
Well, it looks tall. Because the future of farming is vertical. And it could be coming to a city near you.
A vertical urban farming installation is in process in Seoul, South Korea. The project, created by Aprilli Design Studio, is called Urban Skyfarm, and it looks exactly like it sounds. It’s a “tree-shaped” vertical structure that looks a bit like a downtown office building. Each level is home to a variety of plants. Not only would the Urban Skyfarm provide 100% local produce, it could also improve the air quality in cities.
“Vertical farming is not only a great solution to future food shortage problems, but a great strategy to address many environmental problems resulting from urbanization,” says Steve Lee, the principal designer of Urban Skyfarm.
Lee reminds us that by the year 2050, our population is predicted to increase by more than 2 billion. And 70% of that population will likely live in (or near) urban areas. “Estimations show that we would need 25%-70% more food production than [we have] now to feed the future population,” says Lee.
How do we rev up food production without also increasing carbon footprint, ramping up pollution, and contributing to land shortage? It seems like a contradictory problem, and yet the long-term implications of Skyfarm has a solution for each one of these issues.
We’re going to need food as our population increases, but we’re also going to have limited space and be up against worsening air quality as people flock toward cities. Lee was inspired by these exact challenges when developing the concept for Urban Skyfarm. That’s why his primary design focus is building a structure that is highly efficient “while fulfilling multiple public functions within the dense urban context.”
Urban Skyfarm acts as a “living machine.” It’s improving the quality of the environment by filtering water and air and producing renewable energy. The renewable energy will be produced through solar PV (photo voltaic) panels and wind turbines. And it goes even further: As a “net zero facility,” Skyfarm operates only using solar and wind renewable energy.
“Using hydroponic systems and advanced technology, we can produce healthier food within urban areas, which can be a great advantage for dense, overpopulated cities,” says Lee.
Not only will the first floor of Urban Skyfarm be a market that distributes the produce grown on-site, but local farmers will be able to care for their own crops within the structure.
“Urban Skyfarm acts as a community garden hub where people can easily visit, grow their vegetation, and participate in the final production by either bringing it home or selling it back to the local community,” Lee explains.
This project isn’t something that can be adapted overnight — quite the opposite, in fact. South Korea is already moving toward vertical farming with their interest in “plant factories.” However, it will still be a while before Urban Skyfarm can be fully implemented. As of now, it’s proposed for a site in downtown Seoul, right in the central business district.
The ultimate goal is to bring balance to the future of farming, allowing produce to be completely localized while simultaneously benefitting an urban community and the environment.