Vertical farming could make agriculture more robust and sustainable.
To unlock that potential, scientists are redesigning crops for urban
life.
The way we live is out of balance with the way we eat. About eleven percent of the Earth’s land area is used for agriculture; meanwhile, two-thirds of the human population is now jammed in cities, which cover a mere three percent. Continued urbanization and population growth will require more farmland, more transportation, and an even bigger ecological footprint—unless we can find more efficient ways to feed the world.....MORE
One intriguing solution is to give traditional agriculture a 90 degree twist into vertical farming, where crops are grown indoors in tightly stacked rows, sustained hydroponically so that they don’t need dirt. A lot of food production could then be relocated to urban regions, so that less wilderness would need to be converted to cropland, notes Choon-Tak Kwon, a postdoctoral fellow in plant biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The financial and ecological cost of transporting food should decrease substantially, too. “You can grow perishable crops near your home all the year around,” Kwon says, ideally leading to “fresher foods with stable prices.”
We know that the basic concept works. Vertical farming and related forms of urban agriculture already account for a little over fifteen percent of the world’s agricultural production, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. But that yield is dominated by a few crops—mostly leafy greens—that grow well inside, limiting the potential for further expansion.
For urban agriculture to have a meaningful impact on preserving wild habitats, “the diversity of crops that can be grown indoors must increase,” argues Cathryn O’Sullivan, an agricultural scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia. Trouble is, most major crops are too big and gangly to grow well in the confined spaces of vertical farms. Ramping up urban food production will therefore require changing not just how farmers grow crops, but also what they grow.
Kwon decided to accept the challenge, taking tomato plants as his test case. In conjunction with his advisor, Cold Spring Harbor plant geneticist Zachary Lippman, and other members of Lippman’s lab, he set out to determine whether it is possible to radically shrink tomatoes’ stems without compromising their fruit yield. Now he has his answer: Why yes, it is. ...
