Building Up: Vertical Farms

If you're down on the farm, you've probably gone in the wrong direction.

Dickson Despommier worked with his students at Columbia University to envision an innovative way to make cities more sustainable. They literally thought up vertical farms. Maybe it's not surprising in New York, among the world's most vertical cities, where it takes an area the size of Virginia (nearly 43,000 square miles) to feed the the 8.4 million who live crammed into only 469 square miles which make up the boroughs.

Author Dickson Despommier, Photo: Marlene Bloom.

It's an idea as old as the hanging gardens of Babylon, whose future takes shape as a skyscraper of self-contained and self-sustaining greenhouses. Living On Earth's Steve Curwood talks with Despommier about how vertical farms could help solve environmental problems associated with agriculture... Or the obstacles of places like Iceland or Arabian deserts which aren't favorable to growing food.

Oh Grow Up! Audio Embed: PRI's Living On Earth 11/12/10, Introduced by host Bruce Gellerman.