> food doesn't need to be grown in urban areas with expensive real estate.
It doesn't need to. But there's an increasing push towards looking for ways to cut the environmental effects of farming, and there transport is part of the challenge. There's also an increasing push for cutting time to market, despite traditional farms being further and further away from most consumers.
Hydroponics in urban areas is likely to converge on the mass market from two directions: Environmentalists looking for options that cut land use and transport, and up-market foodies willing to pay extra for products that are "straight from the farm two doors down" in the middle of a city.
Whether it eventually will get cost effective enough to supplant normal farms is another matter.
I so sympathize with this view. I used to hold it.
After experimenting with the hydroponics, vertical growing, etc. I've come to realize the best way to cut the environmental effects of farming is to make traditional boring broad acre farming restorative and regenerative. Moving farms into cities simply won't produce enough calories profitably enough to make any meaningful positive environmental impact.
Amazingly enough, there are a large number of well-educated farmers out there that are moving to no-till, alley cropping, key line design for water retention, and perennial crops.
One of the best voices for this new generation of farmers is Mark Shepard:
Maybe it never will, but we won't know without trying.
> I've come to realize the best way to cut the environmental effects of farming is to make traditional boring broad acre farming restorative and regenerative.
But none of that can fully counter the massive land use, nor does it address the increasing effects of transport necessary to handle increasingly urban populations and increasing expectations of short delivery times.
It doesn't need to. But there's an increasing push towards looking for ways to cut the environmental effects of farming, and there transport is part of the challenge. There's also an increasing push for cutting time to market, despite traditional farms being further and further away from most consumers.
Hydroponics in urban areas is likely to converge on the mass market from two directions: Environmentalists looking for options that cut land use and transport, and up-market foodies willing to pay extra for products that are "straight from the farm two doors down" in the middle of a city.
Whether it eventually will get cost effective enough to supplant normal farms is another matter.