Urban Farming

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Earlier this year I travelled to the United States for work purposes, a great experience even though I swapped my shorts for snow and icy footpaths. Through my travels I managed to visit the Museum of Science and Industry (www.msichicago.org) in Chicago. In and amongst some impressive displays I stumbled across the Fast Forward - Inventing the Future exhibition which displayed some of the "usual suspects" when it came to western humanity's view of the future like bendy phones and robots that can make you breakfast. 
The one display that particularly resonated with me described the benefits of using vertical farming through inner city areas to help tackle the world's food production problems. <a href="http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/our-faculty/profile?uni=ddd1" target="_blank">Dr. Dickson Despommier</a> has been a vocal advocate of this method of farming and given his background as an ecologist, microbiologist and Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University - I'd say his opinion carries substantial oomph.
The issues involved are complex and significant. Through Despommier's website <a href="http://www.verticalfarm.com" target="_blank">www.verticalfarm.com</a>, it's estimated that by 2050 nearly 80% of the world's population will be living in urban areas.
Consequently to feed the additional 3 billion people, current practices would require an additional agricultural land equivelant to 20% the size of Brazil. Assuming current trends continue there may well be a shortfall in required resources yet through the use of vertical farming a partial, yet highly sustainable solution is in the offing.
Advantages with vertical farming include:
<ul>
<li>
		Year round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres, depending on the crop. For example, 1 indoor acre of strawberries is equivalent to 30 outdoor acres;</li>
	<li>
		Crop issues relating to weather and pests become redundant;</li>
	<li>
		All food grown in vertical farms are organic;</li>
	<li>
		Vertical farming eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water;</li>
	<li>
		Vertical farming eliminates the use of agricultural land for growing crops;</li>
	<li>
		Greatly reduced incidence of many infectious diseases associated with the agricultural interface;</li>
	<li>
		Vertical farming converts black and grey water into potable water by collectiong the water of evapotranspiration;</li>
	<li>
		Vertical farming adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals;</li>
	<li>
		Dramatic reduction in fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping);</li>
	<li>
		Conversion of abandoned urban properties into food production centres;</li>
	<li>
		Creation of sustainable environments for urban centres;</li>
	<li>
		Creation of new economic and employment opportunities;</li>
</ul>
So how could this be applied to Melbourne? Resident renderer Laurence Dragomir of Blockhead has used the former Savoy Tavern site on the corner of Bourke and Spencer Streets as our test site to demonstate how a mixed-use vertical farm and residential tower in Melbourne may look like (if we had lots of money and could defy gravity...).  
The concept shown below proposes a tower comprising a 15 storey high public market hall at the corner of Bourke and Spencer Streets, north facing terraced community gardens and a communal urban farm. An atrium runs the height of the building.
While whimsical in its nature, the scheme demonstrates the sustainable direction that buildings should pursue. There is no doubt that in the future governments must consider the use of vertical farming and other efficient practices as a legitimate way of sustaining the planet's growing population.
If greater Melbourne continues to gobble up potential farming land for detached houses and increased urban sprawl, then we will reach a point where the financial and environmental cost of sustaining our population could spiral.
On a smaller scale, a number of restaurants around Melbourne are growing a lot of their own plant based produce in house which is great, but we need to think about facilitating this in a far larger scale.
We pride ourselves as a great food city, let's pride ourselves on being a great sustainable food city. Utilising vertical farm technology would go a long way in achieving that goal.
 
Sources and Further reading 
http://www.verticalfarm.com/
http://www.economist.com/node/17647627
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/fastforward/
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flame

The future of vertical farms in Melbourne

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Over the last decade or so, petrol prices have more than doubled and the amount of available and accessible agricultural land has decreased mainly due to suburban sprawl extending further and further away from the major city centres where the majority of our population reside. This invariably has placed cost pressures on the price of fresh produce, increases the environmental impacts through greenhouse gas emissions and puts pressure on the cost of living. To combat this, the most sensible option would be to bring accessible agricultural land closer to the city centres however a combination of high land prices and a shortage in suitable farming land makes this option close to impossible to achieve.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image gallery-all" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/NYC%20farm.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Eagle Street Farms overlooking New York City. Image credit: rooftopfarms.org"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/NYC%20farm.jpg?itok=DSivgd2p" title="Eagle Street Farms overlooking New York City. Image credit: rooftopfarms.org" typeof="foaf:Image"></a>

<figcaption>Eagle Street Farms overlooking New York City. Image credit: rooftopfarms.org</figcaption></figure>Roof-tops are generally seen as the most ideal locations for setting up farms as they are usually the least occupied areas and have generous amounts of sunlight and rain which are essential to a thriving garden. In recent times, there have been many initiatives to incorporate community gardens in existing areas and residential buildings including the Pop-Up Patch located at the Federation Square car park where inner city dwellers rent out veggie patches made from apple containers and pay a modest fee. Another noteable example is the Eagle Street roof-top farm located on a warehouse roof in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in New York City (pictured above). According to the farms fact sheet, the farm comprises of an approximate area of 6,000 square feet (approximately 557 square metres) and provides ultra local fresh produce to the North Brooklyn community along with providing educational programs on how to grow and maintain an urban farm. Furthermore, the initial start up costs for getting the farm up and running was approximately AUD$9.52 per square metre (USD$0.90 per square foot based on a conversion rate of $1 AUD to $1.05 USD) however it was noted that this costing was far cheaper than a standard installations due to the use of recycled materials where possible.

The aforementioned examples demonstrate how existing structures could potentially be utilised to incorporate roof-top farms however the next challenge is to incorporate these roof-top farms into new developments and potentially introducing planning policies or state government tax cuts to encourage developers to incorporate community farms into proposed residential developments. Some of the potential benefits for such initiatives could include:

<ul>
<li>Local food production for the community living within the residential building which will be available to all residents and could even potentially be used as a source of income.</li>
	<li>Increased community engagement by residents with them working together to care for the farms.</li>
	<li>Increased health and well-being.</li>
	<li>Reduced rainwater run-off from the roof as the water will be either captured in the garden beds and/or captured in rainwater tanks which could be used during the drier months of the year.</li>
	<li>Environmental impact may be reduced due to the elimination of the need to transport the produce from a farm in a provinicial area to the city centres.</li>
	<li>Through the use of educational programs, residents can learn new farming skills and pass those skills onto others.</li>
</ul>
A group of Melbourne urban professionals teamed up recently to consider the viability of establishing an urban rooftop farms. Inspired by the <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/new-apartments/melbourne-vic">City of Melbourne</a>'s ambitions to be a "green city"; Pippa Howard, Nicky Scheltus and Alex Houlston have combined their powers along with Russell Hughes, to come up with a plan to develop a sustainable rooftop farm. "imagine rooftop gardens and other dead spaces being put to use growing fresh fruit and vegetables for sale to city swellers" said Pippa, an architect and part time lecturer in environmental design.

The group is preparing a business model for developing an urban farm over the Queen Victoria Market car park which is approximately 2.5 hectares in area. "The Queen Victoria Market is a fantastic case study of how you can make a city much more self-reliant in terms of food supply as well as creating a vibrant and exciting urban space" said Alex who has a strong background in urban design. Further: "Our case study will examine opportunities such as building a lightweight, tiered structure on top of the car park, or potentially redeveloping the site for the community's advantage with a rooftop produce garden, bio-digester and cogeneration boiler. The goal would be to provide food products to vendors at the market for a management fee, meaning we would not compete with stallholders and we would save on transportation costs and emissions".

This is one example of how under-utilised spaces in inner city Melbourne could be activated into productive, vibrant areas.

Further to this, recent residential proposals, in particular the <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/new-apartments/footscray-vic">Footscray</a> Market Redevelopment which will be constructed by <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/builders/hacer">Hacer Group</a> and due for completion by 2014, comprises a two stage redevelopment including the refurbishment of the existing Footscray Market and the addition of a five storey residential component built using an ultra light weight steel frame. The communal courtyard incorporates a sun filled roof top farm which looks back to the areas history as a fresh produce market whilst looking forward as a sustainable inner city farming solution.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/project4.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Proposal Footscray Market Redevelopment including communal roof-top farms. Image credit: http://www.bureau-ua.com/footscray"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="891" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/project4.jpg?itok=i4KfL0kn" title="Proposal Footscray Market Redevelopment including communal roof-top farms. Image credit: http://www.bureau-ua.com/footscray.html" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>Proposal Footscray Market Redevelopment including communal roof-top farms. Image credit: http://www.bureau-ua.com/footscray.html</figcaption></figure>Although roof-top farming can be seen as simple and easily applicable response to Melbourne's sustainability vision, the biggest challenge for stakeholders and policy makers will be engaging and motivating our community to see these types of approaches as the "way of the future" and as a necessary "way of life". However in my opinion, I believe that in the not too distant future that these types of initiatives will be a necessity rather than a option as we grow into a more sustainable, urbanised Melbourne.

<h2>Sources and further reading</h2>

<ul>
<li>http://www.csl.org.au/2009/11/urban-farming/</li>
	<li>http://www.nockdoig.com.au/diy-rooftop-gardens/</li>
	<li>http://www.bureau-ua.com/footscray.html</li>
	<li>http://rooftopfarms.org/</li>
</ul>
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