Vertical Farming

The Economist discusses the market implications of vertical farming in our global economy. The article has three videos as well which are informative and explain the concepts and science very clearly.

Right from the Economist:

"Such is the thinking behind vertical farming. The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. It would also reduce the spoilage that inevitably occurs along the way, says Dickson Despommier, a professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University in New York who is widely regarded as the progenitor of vertical farming, and whose recently published book, “The Vertical Farm”, is a manifesto for the idea".

"Indeed, even in today’s single-storey glasshouses, artificial lighting is needed to enable year-round production. Thanet Earth, a 90-hectare facility which opened in Kent in 2008 and is the largest such site in Britain—it provides 15% of the British salad crop—requires its own mini power-station to provide its plants with light for 15 hours a day during the winter months. This rather undermines the notion that vertical farming will save energy and cut carbon emissions, notes Mr Head, who has carried out several studies of the idea. Vertical farming will need cheap, renewable energy if it is to work, he says."

Time and time again we hear from the UN that the world’s population is expected to increase to about 9 billion by 2050. To feel such a population will mean increasing food production by 70% according to the FAO. This will undoubtedly require a combination of higher crop yields and an expansion of the area under cultivation. This could take the form of more agricultural land (which is unevenly distributed across the world). 60% of the world's population is expected to live in cities by 2030. This could translate into more innovation in the form of vertical or urban farming to feed such populations locally.

Guest Entry: Paper Bag it or the Back of the Line for You

By: Maria Rainier
                                                                                              Image credit: Photos Public Domain
We all do it – go to the grocery store and forget to bring our reusable grocery bags. Oops, I’ll just have to remember next time. But in some states and countries and maybe soon everywhere, using plastic bags won’t be an option. San Francisco started the trend in 2007, banning plastic bags in grocery stores – according to a story covered by NPR in 2008, other cities, states and countries are jumping on the bandwagon to ban the use of plastic bags.

There are many conveniences to using plastics bags: they are lightweight, cheap, easy to use, always  available and always convenient. Banning these conveniences seems like a major inconvenience to most people, but the impact of plastic bags on the environment is what’s most inconvenient.

The harmful effects of plastic bags on the environment:

1.Plastic bags litter the landscape and if burned, produce toxic fumes
2.Plastic bags are non-biodegradable and stick around for about 1,000 years, long after landfills
3. Plastic bags kill animals through ingestion and strangulation
4. Petroleum is used to produce plastic bags – we need petroleum unfortunately

How many times have you driven by a park, parking lot, garden or anywhere else and seen a plastic bag just sitting there, glued to another unobtrusive object? Unobtrusive may have been a bad descriptor for a plastic bag; in all reality, there’s nothing unobtrusive about it.

How many times have you been accosted or surprised by a plastic bag flying in your face or seen one floating into space. In fact, a major part of the film American Beauty, where the boy says to Jane it is “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever filmed,” is about a plastic bag. Really? If that’s beautiful then Ricky, you need to get out more.

Many cities and countries have already started banning the use of plastic bags in supermarkets and stores:

• San Jose recently passed a ban on the usage of plastic bags and many surrounding cities are following the ordinance.
• Last November, parts of L.A. banned single-use and disposable plastic bags to 1.1 million people
• In August 2009, Mexico City banned the use of plastic bags from check-out lines at supermarkets
• In January, Muntinlupa City in the Philippines banned plastic bags & polystyrene containers
• Michigan is starting a movement and petition to ban plastic bag usage in their state
• Last October, an ordinance went into affect banning plastic bags from the Outer Banks of Dare, Currituck and Hyde counties.

Click here for a detailed list of these countries’ Plastic Bag Laws.

Plastic bags may be convenient for our daily lives but they are detrimental to the environment and when we start taking these environmental risks into consideration, only then will we be able to do something about it. The citizens who helped start the movement back in 2007 in San Francisco, probably started by voluntarily banning themselves from the use of plastic bags because starting a movement starts with yourself.

I have recently chosen to ban myself from using plastic bags as well – it’s simple really. I put reusable bags in my car for when I go grocery shopping and in the event that I forget them, I make myself buy news one to bring home my new purchases in. Having to buy a reusable bag that I already have at home is my way of punishing myself – I would rather go broke, due to my own forgetfulness, than punish the environment.

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, where she's been looking into gender wage gap statistics to see if it can be explained through women choosing lower paying degrees and men choosing higher paying degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Climate Change and Food Prices

Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton and columnist for the NY Times, writes about how we are in the midst of a global food crisis. The cause? Bad energy policy, slow and inadequate action on climate change policy and economic growth in emerging markets like China.

"Consider the case of wheat, whose price has almost doubled since the summer. The immediate cause of the wheat price spike is obvious: world production is down sharply. The bulk of that production decline, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, reflects a sharp plunge in the former Soviet Union. And we know what that’s about: a record heat wave and drought, which pushed Moscow temperatures above 100 degrees for the first time ever".

In a time when international food prices are highly volatile, it is critical for both national and sub-national governments to make smarter decisions about what they grow and in what quantity. "Consider the case of wheat, whose price has almost doubled since the summer. The immediate cause of the wheat price spike is obvious: world production is down sharply". Moscow had an egregious heat wave this summer which is argued to be the source of this hike.

There are many solutions to this problem .Globally, we should better identify those critical commodities (wheat, sugar, grain) and discuss strategies on how to grow and keep them in a "contingency" pool. The rationale is precautionary action of course, as climate change is quite sporadic in its impacts but detrimental on international food markets.

Making sustainable change as a student

One of my friends at UBC recently wrote a short review of a book called "The Nature of College" by James Farrell. She wrote an excellent post on the blog "Getting to GreenR" reviewing this book and relating it to current examples of applied sustainability in her program (Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability) at UBC. She writes:

"By exploring the life of the average college student, Farrell finds that nature is everywhere; that between the cafeteria food, clothing choices, computer time, parties and more, the life of a student in fact, connects a lot more intimately to nature – and to a sustainable society – than appears at first glance".

Sustainability is inherently very practical and applied. It must be active on campus and carried out by students. Teaching sustainability can only go so far. Indeed, energy saving projects like double-paned windows and vermicomposting programs are two sustainable projects that students can engage with not only to green their campuses but to understand the process more generally.

"At my own campus at the University of British Columbia, one of the newest courses on offer is Applied Sustainability: UBC as a Living Laboratory, which will be open to students across different faculties, and combines theory and knowledge with practical projects that will be geared towards greening the university’s own operations.  By having students act, in essence, as consultants for the university, both groups benefit from the project, while driving sustainability action on the ground.  What’s also great is that students themselves are helping to design the course, providing a valuable learning experience and providing student perspective to the course syllabus".

Read the full post here.