ahc: earlier vertical farms

Well technologically there should be few problems, float-glass was just coming on the market in 1960, and they already knew how to build tall buildings. Politically, things could be be a bit more difficult though, these would be rather expensive, and of probably only marginal use.
 
ASB.

Just not going to happen for anything except incredibly expensive niche markets. No way would it hit 25% of global food production.

Growing maize in Illinois and Iowa is cheap, cheap, cheap. Growing anything in a greenhouse is far more expensive. Growing stuff in a greenhouse perched on the side of a skyscraper is more expensive than that.

Anything produced in such a facility would be, at a ballpark guess, at least 10x more expensive than field crops, probably rather more. And if that was the price of food, at least a quarter of the world population would starve to death.

Congratulations on your Vlad Tepes award.
 
ASB.

Just not going to happen for anything except incredibly expensive niche markets. No way would it hit 25% of global food production.

Growing maize in Illinois and Iowa is cheap, cheap, cheap. Growing anything in a greenhouse is far more expensive. Growing stuff in a greenhouse perched on the side of a skyscraper is more expensive than that.

Anything produced in such a facility would be, at a ballpark guess, at least 10x more expensive than field crops, probably rather more. And if that was the price of food, at least a quarter of the world population would starve to death.

Congratulations on your Vlad Tepes award.


Correct.

The only way this could work is if you can think of some reason why rural areas suddenly became dramatically unsafe or crops needed controlled environments. But its hard to think of a POD to accomplish that purpose that just doesn't crash civilization altogether.

Thinking out loud here, if crop pathogens and herbicides became common instruments of warfare and were easy to apply and difficult to defend against for some reason (I'm pretty sure the opposite is the case), then maybe as a civil defense measure governments would spend a lot of money subsidizing greenhouses with controlled environments and maybe this would somehow lead to vertical greenhouses.

OK, I got nothing. Vertical farming is just extremely impractical in all but niche applications.
 
Probably the 'best' scenario would be algae biofuel tanks, with the waste being used as animal feed, or dole for the proles. Still be pretty niche. Might also require a world population much greater than, maybe twice the size of, ours?

Which would still involve tens of millions starving to death every year.
 
How does vertical farming work? Do the plants grow up the wall, or a floor of a skyscraper is dedicated to plants? Wiki didn't explain it enough for me...
 
How does vertical farming work? Do the plants grow up the wall, or a floor of a skyscraper is dedicated to plants? Wiki didn't explain it enough for me...

Basically, the walls of the skyscraper are greenhouses. Some of the illustrations one sees look like the hanging gardens of babylon on a steel and glass building, rather than on an adobe one, but i suspect the plants would be kept inside.
 
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