Further, growing food within cities would prevent the need to transport crops from distant farmlands to urban areas which would reduce the food transportation carbon footprint. Vertical farms would also incorporate valuable strategies to transform waste into resources. For instance, vertical farms would be designed to purify sewage into fresh water and to generate electricity using decomposed byproducts. Maximizing resources in this fashion would allow the farms to be self-sufficient and reduce their total carbon output.

Potential Cost

Vertical farms may be just around the corner, literally, if you live in the city. So you may wonder what building one would cost. That’s a tricky question, since there aren’t any comparable projects to consider when compiling an estimate. But engineers are taking the guesswork out of the estimation process by using existing construction costs for skyscrapers to produce a viable cost estimation.

The following is a basic cost estimation provided by the Columbia University think-tank that was involved in the conceptual creation of vertical farming:

• Sub-structure and electro-chromic glass shell - $25,000,000
• 1000 ton Geothermal HVAC - $2,500,000
• 400 ton chiller + cooling tower - $500,000
• Biogas to fuel cell cogeneration facility - $11,000,000
• 800 kWh/day tracking photovoltaic array - $500,000
• 4,500 kW water-cooled lighting system - $2,000,000
• Energy infrastructure and automation systems - $35,000,000
• Living machine-based water recycling system - $500,000
• Floating garden hydroponic system - $1,700,000
• Office and laboratory facilities - $5,000,000

Total Building Cost for vertical farming is around $83.7 million

Adding in the costs associated with annual operation and maintenance of a vertical farm, brings the total of this endeavor to over $100 million. While this may sound like an astronomical amount, it is could be worth the investment. Economists estimate that in about seven years, the profit in fresh produce alone could pay for the initial investment. In addition, the energy and water that a vertical farm would produce could not only sustain its own needs but also provide such important elements for others.

Final Thoughts

While the concept of building farms inside skyscrapers might today sound like a far-fetched idea, when the Earth’s population doubles and there is no more viable land to farm, planting vertical crops within city limits may one day become an obvious food production strategy.