The Big Three of the 21st Century--Food, Energy and Water

Here at the beginning of the 21st century, the challenges are clear: the growing population is stressing the Earth's resources to the breaking point. The "big three" are Food, Energy and Water--whose initials ominously spell FEW. Looming shortages make human misery more likely as time passes without finding solutions. Will the 21st Century be known as the Century of Scarcity? Or will we find new technical, political and economic approaches to free humanity from want and discontent?

Search This Blog

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Vertical farming: how important will it be?

Vertical farming is about reuse and recycling of all parts of the ecosystem: "closing the loops" if you will. A relatively large building in Chicago has been converted to growing a wide range of agricultural products.

I wonder how important this might be in China? There arable land is shrinking and the population continues to grow. Vertical farming has some features in common with aquaculture, which is heavily practiced in China. But aquaculture does not have the "loop-closing" feature of vertical farming; and in fact, aquaculture is a significant pollution concern.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)