Talk:Vertical farming

	Architecture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture articles
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Agriculture Start‑class

	Agriculture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Agriculture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of agriculture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AgricultureWikipedia:WikiProject AgricultureTemplate:WikiProject AgricultureAgriculture articles
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Criticism

This is a great concept, but is there any criticism that can be addressed to make this article seem a bit more relevant?

I wonder if there are any current projects being done by students at Columbia which would address this.

I think this is an exciting concept and I would like to see this article grow to reflect its current progress. --Joseph.r.martinez 05:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the only downside is the cost. Grundle2600 01:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is certainly plenty to criticize, but nothing that I can find outside references for. But I'll soapbox here: first, there is no need for vertical farms. Even if 80% of Earth's arable land is in cultivation, it's not in very efficient cultivation. If the world average for crop efficiencies were brought up to the US or EU standards, production would at least double without a single additional hectare. Second, the concept as stated violates the first law of thermodynamics. Clearly, there is not enough solar energy hitting a tiny little building to feed 50,000 people, so a massive input of electricity would be needed for grow lights. The proposal is to get this from fermenting biomass, biomass produced with the energy of the grow lights! It's a perpetual motion machine.

Frankly, I have no idea how a Columbia professor can get away with this kind of nonsense. Chuao 22:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When the idea was mentioned on Charlie Stross's weblog, he suggested putting a small nuclear reactor in the basement. :) --GCarty (talk) 13:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have not read or seen any criticism pertaining to the obvious problem of internal city pollution affecting these crops. If a vertical farming tower is built in downtown Chicago near the river, how are all of the environmental pollutants from the atmosphere, the river, et cetera kept out of the process? These towers do not appear to be hermetically contained, and there has been no information about pollutant filtration either. Every discussion I see completely sidesteps this fundamental criticism. Anonymous 06:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Curious to know if GMO have been deemed required by the people behind vertical farming. If so, the intellectual property would increase the costs. jlam 21:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of at least one criticism for this- it claims to be a possible solution for desertification and deforestation, but the places where this takes place, the technology level and economic situation would never support the creation of such a tower. Also, for most places normal farmland is vastly preferable, due to the cost per results, and with modern farming technology deforestation and desertification is NOT an issue in the first world. I can't think of too many places where a) Something like a farm tower could be made, and b) there's a need for a farm tower to be made. Perhaps a Mars colony. 71.126.127.21 (talk) 04:01, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other companies making farmscrapers

Other companies that make or -have proposed- farmscrapers have not been described: See Michael Braungart's MBDC, Rafael Pizarro and finally Ken Yeang

87.64.163.98 (talk) 15:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

removing of vegas claim

the ip reverted with comment - "24.126.76.179 (Talk) (4,468 bytes) (Removed Las vegas claim - refuted here:http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/28654" -

yet, http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/28654 does not seem to refute that:

"The city of Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States will build the world's first 30 story vertical farm. Scheduled to be open in 2010, the $200 million dollar project would produce food for 72,000 people."

please clarify this if you feel strongly that it does. Thanks. --Emesee (talk) 21:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed this claim again. See http://blog.businessgreen.com/2008/01/so-is-las-vegas.html for justification. There's no source to be consulted - no contractor, no architectural firm, no city planner, no nothing - and all potential sources have been negative. 24.174.69.211 (talk) 03:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New York

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/15/eafarms115.xml Emesee (talk) 16:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

in NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15farm.html?_r=2&hp&oref=login&oref=slogin ... and the external links section looks like it could maybe use a bit of trimming. Emesee (talk) 05:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]