Vertical Farming Q&A
For the Greener Good
How will we feed ourselves in the future?
On April 29, the National Building Museum hosted a discussion titled "Vertical Farming" as part of the For the Greener Good lecture series. Panelists Robin Osler of Elmslie Osler Architects, Dickson Despommier, professor of Public Health at Columbia University, and Carolyn Steel, author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives, talked about a challenge our world will face in the not-too-distant future: how will we produce enough food to feed a rapidly-growing population as the effects of global warming make the way we farm now impossible to maintain? They discussed the central role food has played throughout human history, and described their ideas about growing food in urban settings or in innovative greenhouses. J. William Thompson, editor, Landscape Architecture magazine moderated.
After the program, the panelists answered selected questions from audience members and online visitors submitted through an online Q&A Forum. Here are the answers:
Q: With all the attention being paid to the distressed livelihoods of tomorrow due to sheer global population, why are we not taking the necessary counteractions in our food sources today? We are poisoning ourselves with every imaginable (and some unimaginable) ingredient. I embrace these forward thoughts also because of the importance of addressing today's food-borne epidemics, such as diabetes and obesity. Take a look at the Native American livelihoods on reservations. We need help.
Robin Osler: I think we would all agree! Our Food Chain project was conceived of precisely to address these kinds of issues. The idea is to begin with the people that have the least access to healthy, locally-grown food, to give them control and to inspire them to spread the word. It’s a bottom up revolution instead of a trickle-down trend-driven action. With the installation of many of these nodes, a network is created that can grow to influence others. And it’s not just about the food. It’s about learning what to do with it as well and getting satisfaction from that.
So much of the challenge is in changing the habits of consumers who have grown accustomed to mass produced cheap food. To educate people to change these habits is, to reference the metaphor Obama has used to speak about the economy, like turning an oil tanker around. It does not spin on a dime but takes time and patience. Our project is just one part of the solution. The large scale farms that Mr. Despommier discusses are equally as important but cannot be the only way. It will require a coordinated, multi-pronged approach with a variety of solutions.
Carolyn Steel: I agree with you—I think the chief problem here is the power of the food industry. If you are interested in how we got here, I can recommend two books to you: one is Harvey Levenstein’s Paradox of Plenty, and the other is Fat Land by Greg Critser. Both chart the rise of processed foods in the modern American diet and show how they are directly related to the current obesity epidemic, chiefly through aggressive advertising persuading people that they can’t cook for themselves and then putting additives such as high fructose corn syrup and palm oil in processed foods. It’s a sobering tale. The main thing now is that the government needs to take action to control the food industry, but it is in a compromised position since it gets funds from big agri-companies.
Q: Is Urban Farming coming to Washington, D.C. anytime soon? The volunteer committee in the law firm I work for works with an elementary school in the Shaw neighborhood and also with Bread for the City, a full-service non-profit that has a location in Shaw as well. I think both entities might be interested in Urban Farming. [Editor adds: Do any of you have anything in the works with any leaders of the emerging "greening the ghetto" movement, which is bringing parks, community gardens, green roofs and other such projects to blighted inner-city areas?]
Carolyn Steel: There are a large number of such projects in the UK, ranging from social enterprises such as Growing Communities in the East London borough of Hackney, which grows organic vegetables in vacant plots and sells them to local residents, to Dott 07 Urban Farming Project that transformed the British town of Middlesbrough for a year, converting many unused public spaces to growing food and ending up with a large public banquet with food grown in the town.
Robin Osler: Our goal is that there will be a Food Chain network—a number of walls and a kitchen community center—in every major city across the country. This will all take time and money of course! Communities can make a difference by establishing farm plots in their neighborhoods and by getting involved in local discussions about zoning. It is critical that people take a more active role in determining what happens to vacant land.
Q: During your presentation someone asked about biofuel production but I don't think it was fully answered. Two questions: do you see biofuel production as an answer to the many problems associated with oil (environmental, trade, demands, etc.)? And could the kinds of greenhouses, urban farms or organic farms you promote produce the materials for biofuel production as well as vegetables?
Dickson Despommier: Yes, vertical farms could become an important source of biofuels like switch grass and dwarf corn.
Carolyn Steel: Short answer to your first question: no! The problem is that biofuels compete directly with food production, and long-term there will not be room for both. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, biofuel production in 2008 accounted for 30% of price rises, directly contributing to the global "food crisis." Plus many biofuels are not even efficient—one study reckoned that producing one gallon of corn-ethanol created more greenhouse gases than one gallon of petrol—and it wasn’t even efficient, since it took 110 calories of energy to produce 100 of ethanol.
Robin Osler: Biofuel is a legitimate option but it is not a unique solution. The problem lies in the magnitude of fuel that is required to feed our habits which could then lead to the monopolization of certain crops, essentially threatening food production farms. We have a tendency to over zealously attack a problem which often results in great accomplishments but the flip side is that we let the solution take over. All of these problems need to be approached from more than one direction so as not to favor one over the other.
Q: This question is primarily for Robin Elmslie Osler, though I would welcome feedback from any of the panelists as well. The urban farming project you talked about was in Los Angeles – my question is whether this kind of farming would be doable in a city with a colder climate, say, Buffalo? What would be possible under those conditions?
Robin Osler: We are in the planning stages of installing a wall in Rochester, NY. The colder climates will require some sort of cover, like a plastic cap in essence, to recreate a greenhouse environment on a much smaller scale. Green Living Technologies, the manufacturer of the tray system that we use in our project, is developing a system to accommodate colder climates.
We have a friend who lives in Maine who is able to grow tomatoes and other vegetables in the winter outside simply by constructing a “makeshift” greenhouse—essentially vertical wood posts and plastic sheeting. So, if he can make it happen in his backyard in Maine, I’m sure we can make it happen on a wall in Boston!
Carolyn Steel: Well, they use greenhouses to grow tropical fruits in Iceland, so I guess if it’s possible there it’s possible anywhere! The main challenge, of course, is where the requisite energy is going to come from.
Q: Realistically, can organic farming get "big" enough to produce enough food to sustain the population? Is there any environmental damage associated with such large-scale, "industrialized" organic farming? Also what are the wastes associated with hydroponic growing?
Robin Osler: Absolutely but it will require a considerable shift in policy and there has to be the will to change the system. At this time, large multinationals, such as Monsanto, have monopolized the seed industry which allows them to overcharge for their “products.” This is wreaking total havoc in the Third World in particular where small farmers are critical to the survival of local economies. For example, there is a rising tide of farmer suicides in India directly related to seed monopolies. The seeds have been engineered to “terminate” their productivity after a single use, thus the need to continually buy seeds to keep their farms producing drives these farmers deeper and deeper into debt. I would argue that to make organic farms work on a larger scale it will require a different kind of corporate structure, one that is more locally based. In essence, a scaling back in order to scale up in the proper manner.
Dickson Despommier: The wastes associated with hydroponics include all the inedible parts of the harvest and leaf litter from beans and other vine crops. It all needs to be re-cycled in a waste-to-energy scheme in order to offset the energy budget that might be linked to HVAC and other mechanical devices (elevators, lighting, etc.).
Carolyn Steel: The chief problem with organic farming is that it is really suited to small and medium-scale production. As soon as you start scaling it up, it is no longer truly organic, since it inevitably starts to take on some of the characteristics of monocultural production. However, there are different sorts of scaling up—I believe we need more farmers on the land, not less, working smaller-scale, mixed-use farms and farming or gardening systems that are proven to be extremely productive at the small to medium scale, such as forest gardens, which operate on the principles of permaculture. The great challenge is to effect the social and economic change that would allow such a transformation to happen.
Watch the video of the "Vertical Farming" program
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For the Greener Good lecture series is presented by The Home Depot Foundation. The Museum's online Q&A Forums are made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. |
