The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century (Tenth Anniversary Edition)

This book was great I think this is the future! If this was immediately implemented our earth would be sooooo much better to live in! Now I've established I support this I'll tell you why I don't feel there is such a huge price loss! If you think about it there is soooooo much land people are farming that they half to pay taxes on by cutting the amount of land you farm to produce the same amount of produce you save on taxes... If it's in a city where there are higher taxes you would still save! Then think about the shipping if you have to get this produce across the entire country that inquires LOTS OF truckers (which sadly would have to find other work other than produce shipping) but all these truckers need at least minimum wage and then the trucks themselves need enormous amounts of gas to run the truck and the freezers as well! This saves a lot more money to! You THEN have the money you make from the enormous amounts of saved produce that normally are sorted out and thrown away at delivery! You also save on water if you have irrigated land this saves you lots of money like a lot of it then you have the fertilizers and pesticides that your not using! The gas for farm vehicles etc. You then look at what your spending that you wouldn't other wise like the workers that work to harvest the crops and plant them (even tho i feel you could have the system largely automated) and so on, the reason people see this as a huge use of energy and cost is that the huge amount of land is compiled from say 75,000 acres into 1 acre or whatever the land savings are so your seeing all those resources and costs in one place when really I think your saving on a year to year bases but you also didn't add up what you can save from what it costs to run like the savings of water but the huge solar panels that would most likely sit on the roof the wind turbines you could work into the architecture then the biomass plant you could have in the basement. This still means HUGE money up front but are proved to make your money back in the end! I like vertical farming and IT'S THE FUTURE! All you need to do is build one hahahaha!

A must read. Without a doubt, the ideas and concepts in The Vertical Farm are nothing short of revolutionary. Although much of the info has made it into talk shows, websites, and other media, I'd still recommend reading the book itself, as Dr. Despommier lays out a narrative that wraps up problem and solution in a comprehensive, easily digestible way. Part ecological manifesto, part vision statement, The Vertical Farm demonstrates the type of holistic thinking required to solve today's environmental challenges. The author focuses on the way in which human behavior -- namely food production -- impacts the environment, and how we can actually change it. Perhaps for the first time in this field, he truly melds such diverse disciplines as biology, ecological sciences, engineering and materials science, sociology, history, and politics, to show the sheer magnitude of the threats that modern human civilization has created for itself. This is the first half or so of the book, and it isn't until the second half that he offers a solution that appears tantalizingly achievable, using technology that to a large extent already exists, to create a man-made ecological system that could represent a breakthrough. Some of the latter part of the book rambles a bit as he goes off on some tangents (which are still relevant) on the potential benefits of the vertical farm concept. However, this is only a small observation; the book's power is its systems-level approach to provide a blueprint rather than a detailed way ahead. As he readily admits, much more actual work remains to be done to make the vertical farm a reality. The reader will probably finish the book wondering at least two things: what can we do to make this happen, and do we as a society have the political and collective will to realize his vision?

Humanity is going to hit 7 billion before this year is out, and now more people live in cities than in countryside. It only makes sense for mankind to grow its food where it lives. Most cities were settled in the most arable land available, because those were the best places to grow settlements. It is somewhat of a tragedy that this prime agricultural land has been lost to urbanization. With vertical farming we can have the best of both worlds where there is living space for urban inhabitants, and space to grow crops for their consumption. I predict that vertical farming is an idea whose time has come!

You hear so much marketing these days about this is a new paradigm or that is a new paradigm. If you want to understand the definition of what a true paradigm is, then simply read this book. A paradigm is defined as an example serving as a model and that folks is exactly what we have here. . The current "state-of-the-art" in agriculture is defined by big agro-chemical companies dictating what the farmer must use for seed, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, etc. The small family farm concept has been dead in America for years. All the runoff from the big farms enters our surface water, groundwater, and oceans laden with harmful chemical that are literally killing every ecosystem on the earth (land, water, ocean, and air). With World population growth rates poised to put us at 10 Billion people by 2050, we simply do not have the amount of arable land available that it will take to feed this super population. At least not with current agricultural methods. Here enters Despommier and his troop of Grad students to show us how to think outside the box concerning an issue that will effect every one of us 7+ billion beings before we leave this Earth for parts unknown. That is having enough quality food to eat. It's hard for us Americans to sit down on our computers in our world of overabundance and contemplate that millions of kids die yearly from starvation. We think that only happens "over there, wherever there is". The truth is that it happens at home too, and in the relatively near future here is likely to become over there if we don't step up to prevent it. As our world gradually warms to levels humankind has not ever seen we will be dealing with climate changes that will rip apart our status quo agricultural systems. Imagine as our coastal cities become flooded that there is water everywhere but none fit to drink. What was until recently considered severe weather will become the norm, and new extremes will develop. If we could only slam on the breaks now and move backwards with respect to how we treat out Earth we might be able to salvage some of it. But we just keep humming along abusing our natural resources without a second thought. But wait, here is a glimmer of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. By completely modifying how we produce our food and redefining how we use our resources to farm, we can accomplish an about face. If we can simply get the ball rolling it will snowball all by itself. I won't event try to explain how a Vertical Farm works or why it is such an amazing concept because the book does this so eloquently that my words wouldn't compare. Please just read it and think how the world would change for your kids and grand kids if we took the time and effort to make this happen. Good luck and I will see you on Level 4 of the first vertical farm (that one will be mine).

The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century by Dr. Dickson Despommier has, at its core, a fairly simple thesis: that raising food in soil is unsustainable and undesirable and that food production must move to large, vertical greenhouses in the city center that grow food, recycle grey water and black water, incinerate solid waste for energy and are, at the very least, net carbon neutral. Attached to these goals are many, sweeping generalizations encompassing numerous other social/environmental ills. It is a quick and easy read due to the large type and generous margins. Many of the same facts are tediously reiterated throughout the book, either because the author really wanted to drive home those particular points to the reader or because there was a dearth of salient facts to support his position. Let me make it clear that I agree and support the basic premise of this book. Dr. Despommier clearly states in the book that he has presented these concepts to various members of the USDA and UNFAO along with myriad experts in the fields of engineering, agronomy and architecture; none of whom have disagreed with the concepts he is espousing. Far be it for me to be the first. However, I find it difficult to accept all of the facts in a book when the author commits factual errors either because the perversion of the facts more suitably fit the narrative or simply due to a real lack of deep understanding of the issues. Perhaps some of the reasons for this can be discerned from the "Suggested Readings" Appendices at the back of the book which is long on Web Resources and light on traditional resources. Particularly confounding to me is that the author defines himself as an Ecologist and yet he does not list three resources I think he would have found indispensible: Crop Ecology: Productivity and Management in Agricultural Systems by RS Loomis and DJ Connor 1992, Ecology in Agriculture, Edited by LE Jackson 1997 and Alternative Agriculture: Committee on the Role of Alternative Farming Methods in Modern Production Agriculture by the National Research Council in 1989. Most of the facts the author seems to get wrong are centered on the agriculture industry in California, perhaps not so surprising for an East Coast, Columbia University Professor. It seems to me the author would have been better off just not discussing California at all, but I suppose it is unavoidable considering California's penultimate position in traditional US agriculture. As a native of California and given my twenty-two years of farm production and research experience in California, I at least feel confident in correcting the author on these points. On page 119 the author writes about the productiveness of California's Central Valley' "with Salinas as its unofficial capital (sic)" fed by the annual snow melt from the "Sierra Madres in California". Of course, Salinas is in the Salinas Valley near the coast; Fresno is probably a better choice as unofficial capitol of the Central Valley of California. And, the Sierra Nevada Mountains make up the eastern edge of California; the Sierra Madres are in Mexico and Arizona. On page 120 he again stretches the truth a bit when he writes "The Central Valley is one of the, hottest, driest places in America, with average daily temperatures in the summer approaching 110 degrees F." It is actually the uncommon heat wave when the average daily temperatures are near 110 for any duration of time, unless the author is confusing the Central Valley (the San Joaquin Valley) with the Imperial Valley further south. On the same page he goes on to state, "Ecologically, the majority of the land (in the Central Valley prior to wide-scale farming) was a mixed-grass prairie completely surrounded by high mountains; hence the dry hot environment. It is about the least likely place to attempt to farm in North America without heroic assistance from hydroelectric projects." Oh, where to start? An expert on ecology, the author should have known that prior to the introduction to California of cattle and annual grasses, the mountains were covered by deep-rooted, perennial bunch grasses which managed to stay green throughout the summers and the valley floor was a patchwork of vernal pools and wetlands. It was not uncommon at the turn of the century for commercial goods to move from Fresno to the San Francisco Bay area via barge! The hydroelectric aspects of the dams were largely an afterthought, they were mostly built to provide flood control for a valley where the topsoil is often measured in tens of feet and the soil B horizon is often better than the A horizons being farmed in many parts of the world. On page 121, obviously in an attempt to lend some credence to his views on California's agriculture industry, the author paraphrases Steven Chu, Nobel Prize winner and Secretary of the Department of Energy, who was speaking about the increasing salinity of the groundwater in the Central Valley, "...the entire agricultural sector of California would become obsolete in less than fifty years due to lack of a source of uncontaminated fresh water..". The biggest threat to California agriculture is not necessarily lack of fresh water or salinization of the SoSJV (there are some engineering solutions to those problems, environmentalists and a largely urban population have routinely blocked efforts by farmers to tile fields and drain saline runoff out to the ocean, to build any more dams to store snowmelt, or to recharge aquifers with storm runoff), it is urban encroachment and sprawl onto prime, productive agricultural land. At the beginning of the 20th Century two of the most productive agricultural areas in California were the Los Angeles basin, then the "salad bowl" and dairy capitol of California and the Santa Clara Valley. A painting, an impressively large canvas, hangs in the Santa Clara County Courthouse. It was painted in the early 1900's, a view in the spring from Mt. Loma Prieta in the coastal range just west of San Jose looking east to the then recently completed Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. The Santa Clara Valley, now known as the Silicon Valley, is awash in cherry, peach and apricot blossoms. Now some of the deepest, most fertile soils in the world sit beneath an unbroken chain of buildings from San Mateo all the way to Morgan Hill. And, of course, in Los Angeles the dairy industry was forced to move over the Tejon Pass into Tulare County and the "salad bowl" moved north along the coast to the Salinas Valley. The final point with which I will take umbrage in regard to California is on page 152 when the author writes, "The Sacramento River supplies some drinking water to San Francisco, and to all other communities in the northern Central Valley...". Of course, the truth is that many communities in the NoSJV are on wells for municipal water supply and I am not certain that San Francisco derives any of its drinking water from the Sacramento River. In 1914 the O'Shaugnessy Dam was begun to impound the Tuolumne River and form Hetch Hetchy Reservoir specifically to supply drinking water to San Francisco; flooding its glacier cut valley, said to be rivaled in grandeur and beauty only by Yosemite Valley, in the process. I have no choice but to also question some of the sweeping generalizations and assumptions made by the author when describing his multi-tier, urban greenhouses. He envisions these structures in the center of cities (taking advantage of abandoned inner-city lots; so ending urban blight) where they will provide a wide array of edibles (no less varied than what is currently available) and much needed jobs to a largely disenfranchised populace while also bio-remediating waste water via plant evapotranspiration and incinerating solid waste for energy via ultra-clean Plasma Arc Gasification; traditional farmers will be pensioned off and their farms allowed to return back to forests and grasslands (or malarial swamps) to sequester carbon. I do not see how consolidating food production into high-rise buildings is going to do anything but decrease the variety of foods available to urban populations. Indeed, many crops that are fast cycling and flower then fruit based on accumulated degree-day units (i.e. leafy greens, cole crops, solanaceous crops, strawberries) will be very amenable to this production system. But what about larger mature tree crops such as walnuts or pecans? Are we really going to grow these in high-rise buildings? What about crops which need to be vernalized in order to set fruit? Are we supposed to heat one section of the greenhouse while we are chilling another? How about those crops which take 3-5 years to reach maturity and production? The author states there will be no further need of pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers in his Vertical Farms. How this will be accomplished I do not know? He does describe a bit the need to run the facilities with very good security, sanitation and environmental barriers to keep out unwanted pests. The same is done in hospitals and they still have problems with virulent Staph. infections. Earlier in the book the author paraphrases the oft cited quote, "Nature abhors a vacuum." Indeed it does. All the security and environmental barriers will be for not the first time an employee does not bother to wash their hands after using the restroom. On page 147 the author lists one advantage of Vertical Farms is that they can produce year-round and take advantage of seasonal markets to get higher returns to the growers. If we pension off all the old-fashioned, outside dirt farmers why would there be any more "seasonal" market. On the next page, "Indoor farmers do not have to pray for rain, or sunshine, or moderate temperatures or anything else.....they get to control everything..". Really? What about power outages, hurricanes, labor shortages, trucker strikes and that ilk? Can they control all that too? On page 167 the author proudly displays his complete ignorance of the dominant produce marketing system in the U.S. In regard to why the fruits and vegetables offered on grocery store shelves do not have the superior taste of those available from some of the more progressive growers, "...many small greenhouse operations still do not 'get it'. It's a constant tug-of-war between consumer and producer that will probably go on regardless of the fact that growers know what to do. For some, it's just too involved to care much." The author really believes that growers do not care enough to grow fruits and vegetables that taste good? There is no tug-of-war between growers and consumers because there is a disconnect between those two groups. Most produce is handled through large, national grocery chains and those chains have regional distribution centers (DC's). It is the produce buyer at the DC who decided what you will see on your local grocery shelf and (s)he does not care about taste, all they care about is price and that the fruits/vegetables are firm enough to ship many miles and hold up on the shelf long enough to sell. On page 170, "Decentralization of food production, once it is situated inside the urban landscape, will go a long way to thwarting terrorist activities. Remember: Outside, we control nothing, while inside, we get to control everything." Multiple commodities produced in a few high-rise buildings in the middle of town that are also pivotal in producing potable water from grey-water is less centralized than having this same production spread out across the countryside? While on the topic of centralization, the author envisions that Vertical Farms will not be built by private capital because the profit motive will not be there, at least not initially for some crops, and will never be profitable for other crops and the time for ROI will be far too long. So, he envisions them as being funded and run by government entities. Can we think of any corporation that is run efficiently and profitably by the government? Didn't the USSR prove that central, socialist control of agriculture production and marketing leads to a starving populace amidst one of the greatest grain producing areas in the entire world? Then on page 209 the author adds, "Government-sponsored food programs may become the determining economic factor in the form of incentives and subsidies that enable the vertical farm to survive and even thrive, producing crops that in a free-flowing market economy would ordinarily fail to generate enough income to make them worthwhile." Page 184, "...plants and people go well together, so the temperature and humidity profiles maintained inside the building should allow for a very pleasant work environment as well as favoring maximum crop yields." In fact, maximum crop yields would likely occur at a CO2 enrichment level that the workers would find uncomfortable if not uninhabitable. Page 229. "The inner cities of most American metropolises have few if any high-end grocers like Whole Foods. In many instances, the dominant ethnicities of the inhabitants of inner cities are minorities; Asian, Hispanic, and African American. Bringing the vertical farm to those areas will be like a breath of fresh air..." immediately improving the nutritional habits of minorities in those inner cities leading to a decrease in type 2 diabetes and obesity as stated elsewhere in the book by Dr. Despommier. Let's see, we already have farm production heavily subsidized by public water work projects, and then we have additional price supports and subsidies for grains such as corn and soybeans as well as for sugar. This leads to an oversupply of cheap calories from corn, soybean, fat and sugar which can then be purchased with WIC or Food Stamp subsidies from the government. The recipients of Food Stamps could very easily choose to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, but they can get a lot more calories for their dollar (well someone else's tax dollar) if they purchase the subsidized corn/soy/sugar calories thus leaving more cash for alcohol and cigarettes. Government owned and operated, inner city vertical farms that sell their produce via government-sponsored food programs will end this vicious circle how? A few other erroneous facts and random generalizations: "....since our genome does not contain any remnant DNA from the Neanderthal genome..." extraneous and no citation, and wrong I believe. Only one individual partially genotyped. See references for Svante Paabo.(p.42). "Today, most of the tractors and other farming equipment sold in the United States are manufactured by John Deere Company.....All use gasoline as their fuel of choice." The first statement is a sweeping generality and the latter is clearly false as most farm tractors run on diesel fuel. (p.85). "...traditional agriculture is not working and probably never did work." (p.135). What is clear is that it is challenged by the need to feed 6 billion people daily and will be very challenged to feed the projected 9 billion by 2050. Cleary, for thousands of years, traditional agriculture worked all too well. "Avocados are no different from all other plants in that they give their seeds the maximum chance for survival by storing lots of goodies in them." (p.164). Obviously, the author knows next to nothing about seed ecology. Why make such a sweeping generalization when it serves no real purpose? As an Ecologist, the author must know that there are R-species and K-species. For plants, those that make only one or a few large seeds per flower and invest in them a great deal of nutrients (like the easily germinated Avocado pit), versus those which produce many very small seeds, each with only a small amount of energy reserves so that some will avoid frugivorous birds and mammals and find the right environment in which to germinate (or lay dormant in the soil until the right conditions are met). On page 164, the description of the Periodic Table that is found opposite page 147 in no way matches the illustration or the caption that accompanies it. What, no budget for proof-reading? Page 172, "Wine grapes grown in vertical farms could make vintage wines as commonplace as bottled water." And just as insipid (except Merlot which cannot get anymore insipid). It is the untimely frost, the infection with noble rot and the stress of drought that concentrates flavors and makes for "vintage" years. As for the word "terroir", forget it as it falls out of use because it is no longer applicable. Dear Dr. Despommier, please feel free to contact me prior to the next printing of this book, should there be one, if you would like some assistance with the editing, proof-reading and fact checking.

Two and a half years ago I was looking across the street and saw a Safeway supermarket with an empty roof. I thought to myself, why don't we put farms on top of buildings so that we have more local food? Last month, I finally got to finishing Dr. Despommier's The Vertical Farm. As someone who is passionate about finding innovative solutions to environmental problems, I found this book inspiring. First, Dr. D takes introduces some of the most important issues related to our unsustainable agriculture system. This is great for readers who might not be sustainability experts. If you are such an expert, this will be a good refresher of sustainable agriculture. The rest of the book explores the vertical farm as a concept and what role it might play in the future sustainable city. It has images of concept farms, the main systems involved, and the basics of soil-less growing techniques. A lot of the reviews on here are critical of the author's visionary thinking and criticize the book for using "could", "would" and "should" too much. We won't get very far in making our societies sustainable without imagining solutions for the future as this book does. Our best ideas came from imagining what might be possible. The Vertical Farm is a great read for those looking to be inspired by a sustainable vision of future cities.

Pragamatic and vital, The Vertical Farm poignantly illustrates that the national debt we are leaving to the next generation will pale in comparison to the severity of the nutritional deficit that they are set to inherit. Exemplified by facts and figures, it is clear that today's farming practices must evolve into methods that are sustainalbe if the human species expects to nourish its pending population growth. The destruction of ecosystems, unpredicatability of weather patterns, unavailability of tillable land, and the depletion of fresh water are thankfully countered by the ingenuity of vertical farming and the brilliance of author Dr. Dickson Despommier and his staff, who clearly send this message to the entire omnivorous world: It's time to GROW UP!

I started getting interested in the vertical farm idea awhile back after watching an interview by the author. When I learned he was coming out with a book I had to get it. It is a great book for anyone that is even slightly interested in the topic. As a student studying architecture I find some of the above reviews to be not very accurate. Dr. Despommier's book is not meant to give all the answers, rather its suppose to give background information and get people excited about what vertical farms could do for their lives. I was not at all upset with the fact that the book doesnt tell you how to design a vertical farm, that's not its purpose. The intent of the book is to get people thinking about the idea and how we could possibly change our agricultural system for the better. As a design student I am glad this book isn't a blueprint and I'm pretty sure any upper division design student would tell you the same thing. The book gives you the starting push, its up to you to do the rest.

[...] "Urban Agriculture is a podcast all about food production within the built environment. Some of the topics we will cover include: the current state of agriculture around the world and critical issues facing outdoor farming, the effects of outdoor farming on ecosystem functions and services; indoor farming (e.g., greenhouses, vertical farms); food safety, sovereignty, and security; food deserts, obesity; malnutrition; ecological footprint; freshwater availability; land use; growth of human populations; re-use of urban abandoned buildings; limiting factors such as phosphate and freshwater; indoor growing systems (e.g., hydroponics, aeroponics), aquaponics) and lighting strategies; plant physiology; automation; and much more. A regular feature of our podcast will be in-depth interviews with many of the world’s leading experts in urban agriculture. Vincent and Dickson are two science Professors at Columbia University Medical Center who are co-hosts of two other podcasts, This Week in Virology, which was begun in September 2008, and This Week in Parasitism. The success of these podcasts made it clear that there is a large audience who wants to hear conversation about complex topics such as infectious diseases. We began Urban Agriculture because Dickson has had a long-standing interest in farming within the built environment – hence his book, The Vertical Farm."

Dr Despommier is a visionary and has given very unique and practical ideas on how to reverse the deep damage that has already been done to the planet. Great book with excellent solutions

Sehr gut geschieben, interessantes Thema und nachvollziehbare Argumentation- was will man mehr? Das Buch zeigt viele Probleme auf, Despommier stellt aber auch einen Lösungsvorschlag bereit. Sehr empfehlenswert, da es trotz wissenschaftlicher Rationalität recht locker und angenehm zu lesen ist.

Comment voir la ville de demain en appliquant des principes de permaculture et de frugalité. Un livre qui jette les bases d'une meilleure compréhension de ce qui devrait guider nos politiques dans leurs choix à venir.

Ricevuto nei tempi e prodotto come da descrizione in perfette condizioni.