The Vertical Farm: Feeding Ourselves and Our World in the 21st Century

"We invented agriculture at least six different times across the entire globe," Columbia professor Despommier writes in a volume designed to build the case for vertical farms. Despommier's argument is not new, but he is compelling and concise as he weaves together global warming, the population explosion, and other factors encouraging us to explore new ways of feeding ourselves. He is particularly adept in helping readers understand how a well-designed and maintained vertical farm would be a self-contained ecosystem, and how that would lend itself to a more environmentally and economically stable world. However, Despommier is naively optimistic on the ability of large agrochemical companies to "do the right thing and get on board the global green movement" even without economic incentive. Less forgivable is his failure to explain how a vertical farm will actually work. The author says nothing on what plants to plant, or how they are grown, harvested, and distributed. Neither does he mention where these farms should be built, nor who will work them. These specifics are necessary to move his big idea from the concept to reality. Photos. (Oct. 2010)