Vertical Farming

What is it?
As the population of the world increases, the existing mankind is running out of a land to live in. And this is forcing them to look for alternatives to accommodate the existing and the ever growing population. The solution was simple. Instead of building houses one beside another let us increase the height to accommodate more number of floors to accommodate more number of people in each building. In other words, people began to build vertically. Now, here comes a need for land to grow crops to feed the existing population. In a similar way, this method of growing crops vertially inside the skyscrapers was introduced.
It cuts down on costs of transportation and also well, more space was created for growing crops. Erosion is prevented. The use of pesticides and other chemicals can be limited because the plants are grown in a controlled environment. Also, spoilage during transport is prevented. As most of the human population is migrating towards the urban areas it is better to grow the crops in proximity.
The immediate disadvantage that comes to our obvious view is the uneven growth pattern of the plants. Think about it. The plants growing near the windows will receive sunlight and hence will grow differently from the ones that grow with the help of artificial lighting. So, would this approach work? YES ! glasshouses. It is now possible to tailor the sunlight, humidity, lighting, airflow etc to get the best productivity indoors.

Antarctica- WOW!
This vertical farming is being practised in one of the most weirdest places possible(set up in 2004). And ya it's working perfectly. To supply food to the researchers at the Scott-Amundsen South Pole Station when the food supply is low, this was set up. And from this vertical farming technique, the people get atleast one fresh salad everyday. The main requirement although is the artificial lighting because during winter the place is dark for most of the time.

Okay, So how was this actually invented?
Interesting story indeed. Dickson Despommier, a professor in Columbia University was once teaching his class about parasiticm, environmental disruption and some other sad topics. Suddenly, the students complained and told the professor that they wanted to do something that would bring about some good change in this world. They came up with the idea of a 30-storeyed building with a greenhouse on every floor. Thus came into existence vertical farming.
But, just like everything has a dark side to it,

The dark sides of this practice:
Construction cost : very high to create such tall greenhouse buildings.
Energy cost : Unimaginable amount of energy would be used up as the number of vertical farms increase in number.
And traditionally grown crops will become much much more cheaper than these crops will would render it useless.
And finally, as expected
Pollution : Since we are dealing with regular green house produce it obviously increases the amount of green house gases which in turn increases the pollution in the atmosphere.

So,what's actually being done?
Researchers are considering alternatives to alleviate these problems. For example, instead of the huge amount of electricity they propose to be working on devices which will use solar power

Conclusion?
This is a really nice approach which will definitely feed thousands of people and is in close proximity to the urban areas. If the disadvantages are overcome, vertical farming is the future.