Anthonares

Without significant advances in agricultural technology, the food-production capacity of the Earth will not be able to keep pace with the current global population growth rate indefinitely. When there are more mouths to feed than can be satisfied, the population in countries short on food will begin to level through hunger and malnutrition. This inevitable global crisis may be what is most likely to destabilize the current world order during the coming century.

People have long predicted that humans would out-eat our capacity to produce, beginning perhaps with Thomas Malthus in the early 1800s. Modern prognosticators including, famously, Paul R. Ehrlich have continued Malthus’ thinking and updated it to include more modern technology. In 1968, Ehrlich published The Population Bomb predicting the imminent collision of agricultural production and human consumption. But, that very same year, the Green Revolution was named for what it was: the use of revolutionary new strains of staple grains to dramatically increase agricultural yields worldwide. This, along with a dramatic decrease in birth-rates worldwide staved off the date of the Bomb’s explosion for at least several decades.

Proponents of genetically modified organisms believe that the next Green Revolution will be due to the inclusion of genes into existing varieties of plants that will increase their nutritional value and decrease their susceptibility to pests and disease. This may prove to be true, but as we’ve all seen, GMOs face a rocky future, at least in the near-term. Their seeds are currently more expensive, thus making them attractive in developed countries only. However, their acceptance in these countries is an open question, as many groups believe that there are under-studied dangers inherent in introducing GMOs into the environment on a massive scale.

Meanwhile, urban sprawl, soil erosion, and exhaustion threaten significant fractions of the world’s productively arable land. Also, the drive to open up more land for production leads to the destruction of invaluable ecosystems and environments such as the world’s tropical rainforests. Cruelly, these lands often produce significant yields for a few years as they are thin, easily eroded, and relatively mineral-poor. Even if another Green Revolution is on its way, the rate of decline of the world’s soils may overwhelm increases in productivity due to genetic engineering.

This is not a new realization, soil conservation techniques are widely practiced and incentivized in the US and other developed nations. What may be new however, is an idea to grow large quantities of foods within cities themselves. Today, I noticed an article published a few weeks ago over at Damn Interesting that introduced me to the idea of Vertical Farming. Basically, the concept is to grow food hydroponically, recycle sewage, and generate energy via methane burning within cities themselves. The organizers of the site claim that cities can be entirely self-sufficient using many such vertical farms.

This kind of project is ideally suited for deployment within developed countries, particularly those in Europe or in cities along the East coast of the US. Importantly, the vertical farms could be completely organic, further increasing their appeal within urban areas. By growing food locally, jobs would be provided to host cities, while transportation costs and congestion would be decreased. City dwellers would see fresher produce, greater variety, and more reliable supplies. Sewage treatment would increase capacities of systems while decreasing failure rates because of distributed facilities. There are a host of benefits, aside from the obvious increases in global security and reduction in suffering, that go along with the increase in food supply due to vertical farms as well that are nicely summarized by the graphic on the left. Finally, the site also notes that we must master the art of growing food without fields before we can live off the Earth en-masse.