Monday, May 10, 2010

The Final Word on Vertical Farms

One of my hobbyhorses is vertical farms, or rather the unfeasibility of vertical farms.  This post should put the final nail in this idea:
Although the concept has provided opportunities for architecture students and others to create innovative, sometimes beautiful building designs, it holds little practical potential for providing food. Even if vertical farming were feasible on a large scale, it would not solve the most pressing agricultural problems; rather, it would push the dependence of food production on industrial inputs to even greater heights. It would ensure that dependence by depriving crops not only of soil but also of the most plentiful and ecologically benign energy source of all: sunlight.

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