I like this article with a new idea for growing food for the world with hydroponics.  There are dissenters, of course, but they don’t put forth new ideas to solve the problem for us to consider.  Not very constructive, I’d say.  I’ve posted a link so you can read the whole article.  It would be very interesting to read your comments and, perhaps, alternative solutions?

Growing crops in buildings proposed as solution to world’s food woes

Is it an elegant solution to pressing problems related to the food supply, or another example of putting too much faith in technology?

That’s a tough question to answer. But what is clear right now is that vertical farming is in its infancy.

The idea is to grow food inside buildings — not conventional greenhouses, but multi-storey buildings, quite likely in cities — in closed ecosystems using hydroponics rather than soil, and without the use of pesticides.

So far it has only been tried on a very small scale. Paignton Zoo in South Devon, U.K., for example, is growing produce to feed some of its animals.

But advocates of vertical farming — notably Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University professor of public health — envision towering gardens in the heart of a city. Despommier, who is working on a book on the idea, sees vertical farming as part of the answer to global warming, water shortages and inner-city health problems.

Read more….

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 8:18 pm and is filed under hydroponic system, hydroponic systems, hydroponics, indoor gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.