Large Scale Urban Agriculture - Page 4

<< oil prices, Cuba will be hardly affected and has meanwhile ensured a more sustainable method of operating.

Still, medium scale urban farming is difficult to extend to something larger than a local community, and while it usually makes use of land that would otherwise not be used for food production, does not add to farm land capital as a whole in a structural sense. Therefore this article forcusses on large scale urban farming, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

4. Large scale urban farming profile

Urban farming on a large scale is a different animal than medium and small scale altogether. Relying on a large volume of production it is hard to imagine this being organized by anything other than a single professional entity that employs people on a full time basis to operate its facilities. To achieve a large volume of production in urban areas, and observing the economic forces at play in such an environment, agriculture will need to be stacked to make use of the costly land as efficiently as possible. Depending on the price of land this could be just several stories or as many as those of the tallest skyscraper. This alters the way agriculture is performed in many ways quite radically, and the interaction with

such a farm in a city context is also an entirely different experience than traditional farming allows.

Current research profiles a possible enterprise to feed up to 50.000 people based on a caloric intake of 2,200 people, a staple built up from the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion’s dietary requirements and 19 floors on a 250.000 square foot area, or 43 floors on a 90.000 square foot area8. This would include the growing of Tilapia in tanks (the most nutritious fish), and breeding chickens for mainly egg production. Of course the farms could be larger (which might be impractical in an urban setting), and there is no reason to assume a somewhat smaller farm won’t operate less efficiently, given a certain minimum size, which is currently not yet known. One can assume economics would dictate this eventually in not such a complicated pattern. Urban

farming requires a different approach to traditional farming, for instance, since one has less access to daylight, artificial light has to be provided. Also, since working with soil is impractical, various soil-less techniques can improve the growing conditions, and by regulating the environment high efficiencies can be reached.

Current research is exploring two paths along which to develop methods of vertically stacked farming. One is Hydroponics, using artificial non-consumable substrates on which the plants are anchored through which water flows with added nutrients. Without the involvement of soil, the process becomes cleaner, and the plants grow more efficiently. When a full day and

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