I always enjoy a vertical farming concept.
Originally shared by Greg Batmarx
This may sound a little odd, but it’s a very interesting idea. Many over populated areas around the world are having trouble supplying their population with food, and countries such as Singapore, the most densely populated country in the world, do not have the space to grow crops and are forced to import around 90 percent of their food.
Spanish architects from a design firm called JAPA may have found a solution to this problem: floating vertical farms.
They call it FRA (floating responsive architecture) and it is based on floating fish farms which have been used since the 1930s. The shape is a bit… different, but the structure is designed this way to capture the most amount of sunlight for the plants, reducing shadows and saving space.
This new innovation offers some cool features to help ensure the right productivity. Inside these towers are a large number of sensors that will help monitor the crops and send status updates to various networks in charge of looking after them. This will help guarantee that all crops are getting the right amount of water and keep track of plants that might be dying so they can be rejuvenated, or replaced to continue consistent production.
The data from these sensors will also be used to calculate the amount of food being produced and how much of this food is being purchased from stores. These sensors will suggest how much food needs to be produced on a regular basis, so over time they can adjust the production so no food goes to waste. Javier Ponce principal from JAPA, stated The system will aim for zero food waste.
Although these designs are just a concept for now, it is being proposed that a smaller set of prototypes be tested first to see what vertical farming could really be capable of. Singapore, as mentioned before being the most densely populated country, is the leading candidate for these farms as they are in the most need with China next in line. JAPA has actually already set up areas around Singapore of where vertical farming would be placed in order to help balance the distribution throughout the country.
As of now, the amount of energy needed to run the farms is being looked at, as well as the amount of food that each will be able to produce. I assume that solar energy will be a main energy source involved to ensure sustainability.
Although we may never see these floating vertical farms, this type of thinking is what we need for our world to improve.
http://www.theevolvingplanet.com/floating-vertical-farming-food-crisis/
Parking it next to the Marina Sands seems quite a flight of fancy, but next to a freight transport hub could be a thing.
I’d worry about how well it would deal with extreme tropical weather events too.
I have a different idea on that concept. Floating buildings with large windmills for energy, and multiple stories of hydroponics powered by the wind. I tried computing the ROI of my idea and it’s always negative so maybe not practical with current technology, but still a cool story idea. Each building is connected to the others by underwater standoffs and ornate bridges above the water. Like an open ocean Venice with towering spires where whales can swim through the city between the kelp and mollusk farms. 🙂
Sea farming can be pretty productive – and I imagine you could use some of the kelp to fertilize the non-ocean crops. It would be an interesting setting for a story.
Mike Reeves-McMillan yeah, ISTR there’s some interesting stuff going on in Long Island Sound with an ex-fisherman switching instead to farming the underwater in very systematic ways.
I’ve heard about that on a couple of podcasts. Fascinating.
Why is the fact that Singapore imports its food a problem? Given a high population density, it probably makes sense to get its food from places where land to grow it is less expensive.
David Friedman yeah, I agree. There’s plenty of fertile land just across the bridge in Southern Malaysia, but even here in Ireland where there’s plenty of land I find lots of vegetables in the local supermarket from all over Europe and even from Africa.
One of the things the sea farming guy is doing is using kelp to clean polluted water. That particular kelp is not eaten.
People are considering farming clams (oysters? muscles? I can never remember the difference.) in polluted rivers to clean the rivers. Those aren’t for eating either, but clean the pollutants so downstream clams can be harvested for food.