URBAN FARMING
Urban farms are not only a great way to supply our ever-growing capitals, they’re also good for profitability, people and the planet.
Making locally grown and sustainable produce accessible to those in the city.
Cities remain at the front and centre of global development. The United Nations forecasts the global population will jump from 7.6 billion today to 10 billion by 2056, with two-thirds of the world’s people living in cities. Such rapid urbanisation generates overcrowding, and places a strain on a city’s environment, resources, air quality and food supply.
So, if we want to eat local fruit and vegetables in 2050, how can we plan to make it happen? Fast becoming a way to solve the looming challenges of population growth, urban farms are creating natural food-producing ecosystems in under-utilised urban spaces, and revolutionising the way we harvest and eat food in our cities.
Creating sustainable urban farms is at the centre of this phenomenon. With urban farming, food is sold straight from the farm, so produce is always fresh, and both waste and the need for storage are eliminated.
Globally, urban farms have demonstrated a smarter way to feed cities, by growing more than 70 varieties of vegetables and feeding thousands of households a week.
With about 80 per cent of the population living in or around metropolitan areas in Western countries, urban agriculture is changing our food systems. The majority of farmland is in remote, rural areas. The entire chain has a larger carbon footprint, as food has to be trucked in or transported on an aeroplane, increasings costs and decreasing freshness.
As the urban sprawl continues, city-fringe farms are being squeezed out and community gardens stretched, highlighting a need for city dwellers to be more self-sufficient.
Research conducted by the University of Technology Sydney in 2016 found that if we continue down the path we’re on, total food production could shrink by 60 per cent, and the Sydney food bowl’s capacity to feed its residents could drop from meeting 20 per cent of food demand down to a mere six per cent.
Co-founder and farm manager of Pocket City Farms, Michael Zagoridis, says, “We want to grow food where people live, and grow it more sustainably.”
Pocket City Farms kickstarted urban farming in Sydney in 2016, when it converted 1200m2 of bowling greens at Camperdown Commons. Growing salad greens, vegetables and herbs, it hosts a greenhouse to grow seedlings for the market garden and for sale to the public, along with a compost program that turns over food scraps from the restaurants and cafés it supplies. Chickens and Australian native bees add to this system. There’s also a 180m2 food forest on the street verge, providing free food for locals. “Keeping food in the city where people are is a no-brainer,” says Zagoridis.
Grounded in permaculture, urban farming follows agricultural principles based on simulating or using patterns observed in natural ecosystems. This means accessing food locally, eating seasonally, and learning more about where our food comes from.
Lufa Farms opened the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse in 2011 in Montréal, Quebec, in Eastern
“Urban agriculture is the Swiss Army Knife of benefits.”
ANASTASIA PLAKIAS
Canada. The company now grows produce year-round in hydroponic urban rooftop greenhouses. Through its online market and designated pickup points, Lufa Farms now delivers about 10,000 orders each week to its ‘Lufavores’, feeding about two per cent of the population.
In 2017, it introduced its largest and most technologically advanced rooftop greenhouse, set atop an industrial building in Anjou, Montréal. The 5853m2 rooftop greenhouse grows close to 50 varieties of lettuce, greens, herbs and vegetables – having harnessed advances in vertical propagation and an automated growing system that produces about twice the output of comparable hydroponic systems.
In Berlin, where community gardens are popular, 'agripreneurs' have taken urban farming to a whole new level. Fresh from the Roof – an impressive aquaponics rooftop farm set on an enormous old malt factory in the city’s Schöneberg district – produces both fish and vegetables.
Aquaponics, an innovative coupling of aquaculture and hydroponics, produces fish in the aquaculture half of the aquaponics system. Through its own circulatory system, the most modern BPA-free plastic filter system and oxygen reactors exchange three to five per cent of the existing water in the circuit with fresh water. Nutrient-rich wastewater results from this daily exchange, and covers the amount of water needed for the vegetables.
Fresh from the Roof calculates the optimal alkaline levels, water temperatures and food amounts. The increase in the fishes' wellbeing boosts their immune system, lowers their mortality rate and enables a stable harvesting volume without compromising size or quality.
Engaging urban communities in building a healthier and more locally based food system is central to our ethos, explains Anastasia Plakias, cofounder of Brooklyn Grange, a world leader in urban rooftop farming.
Brooklyn Grange believes that businesses should nourish communities and drive positive change in terms of the triple bottom line – profitability, people and planet. Setting the standard for urban farming globally, it operates the world’s largest green roof farms, located on two New York City buildings, and grows more than 22,680 kilograms of organically cultivated produce per year.
According to Plakias, “Urban agriculture is the Swiss Army Knife of benefits. It’s a community-based industry that meets the needs of its community. If there are unused industrial buildings, create more farms – if there’s increased unemployment, create more jobs.”
Utilising unused space and creating jobs is generating new opportunities for Boston’s Higher Ground Farm. Opening its second farm at the Boston Medical Centre in Boston, Massachusetts, Higher Ground Farm is paid to manage the hospital’s rooftop farm, which provides jobs for a beekeeper and farm manager. “With our second farm we've shifted our focus to providing a for-purpose health service,” says John Stoddard, founder of Higher Ground Farm.
Boston Medical Centre provides subsidised food to staff and patients that is organically grown, healthy and fresh. Part of the food from the hospital farm goes to its onsite food pantry. Patients can get a prescription to the food pantry for fresh food straight from the roof. “You have to be creative,” says Stoddard. “You’re constantly having to rethink things and figure out how to keep the soil healthy, improve the wellbeing of patients and the community, as well as bring in additional income.”
With artificial intelligence and robotics ramping up, the technological possibilities are not as complicated as they might initially seem. Spread, an automated vertical farm in Japan, uses hydroponics to produce about 30,000 lettuces per day using floor-to- ceiling shelves where the produce is grown.
“In Japan, the average age of farmers is 67, so we wanted to attract the next generation of farmers – and Kameoka Plant was our first hydroponic vertical garden,” states Chris Malcolm, Spread's assistant manager, business development.
“In a country prone to natural disasters, we also need to ensure food security for our people.”
Spread's Techno Farm introduces the latest advanced technologies, such as an automated cultivation system, water recycling and environmental control technologies, and specialised LED lighting for vertical farming. Seed planting continues to be done by hand, while the rest of the process, including harvesting, is performed by industrial robots. Contamination is thus minimised.
With year- on-year growth, growing food where people live and doing it more responsibly is fast becoming the norm. Urban farms provide an ecological one-stop shop, delivering value to unused urban spaces, communities and the environment.
Capitalising on unused urban spaces means we better utilise car parks, rooftops and basements to extract greater value for city dwellers beyond just a great cup of coffee. It also allows city dwellers to build farms from food waste saved from landfill.
Unlike industrial farms, which can be massive consumers of land and water, a rooftop farm uses no land at all. Absorbing heat from the building below, they use 50 per cent less energy than one on the ground.
Capturing rainwater, reducing energy use, composting green waste and using bio controls instead of synthetic pesticides, urban farms are a viable way to feed cities. They create thriving ecosystems in our communities, combat air pollution, reduce energy costs and decrease our travel mileage.
Since 2009, urban farming worldwide has scaled to commercially viable food production, partnering with universities and collaborating with local farms and food makers to offer fresh, local and responsible goods direct to your door.
Through generating fruit and vegetables, honey, compost and fish, they have created green- collar jobs for people on low incomes. For instance, Boston’s CommonWealth Kitchen, a food business incubator, provides shared kitchens and business assistance to help entrepreneurs build better food companies and create jobs.
“Urban farming requires us to think more holistically about the food system,” says John Stoddard.
“The food we buy for $3 is connected to a whole ecosystem: everything from the seed, to the sun, to the soil, to the people that harvested the produce – all making it easy for you to buy fresh and local.”
At the centre of this phenomenon is the opportunity to reconnect with nature and where our food comes from. In doing so, urbanites find meaningful activity, food on the table, and a healthy meal on their plates.