Urban Farming For Youths

In Singapore, a country with a population of more than 5.5 million on the main island that is just 26 miles wide and 14 miles long, there is a four-story rotating greenhouse, it produces 1 ton of greens every day. Normally, Singapore imports 93% of its produce. Most of us thinking of farming as the growing of crops on the ground. A vertical farm grows plants and produce by stacking the plants. This is accomplished by using growing shelves suspended on a wall or fence, which uses much less space than growing the plants on the ground. Thereby, maximizing the available space. Most vertical farms are either hydroponic, where plants are grown in a bowl of water containing nutrients, or aeroponics, where the plants’ roots are sprayed with a mist that includes water and the nutrients needed to support plant growth. Neither method requires soil for the plants to grow. Usually artificial grow lights are used, sometimes in conjunction with natural light. In Singapore, a country wit...

Hydroponically grown lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries and herbs make up an ever-increasing share of produce on display at many grocery stores and farmers markets. But growing plants indoors in controlled conditions is hardly new. For centuries, large- and small-scale growers have used greenhouses and container gardening to extend the growing season, create ideal growing conditions and increase growing space. What makes hydroponics different is the absence of soil. Instead of drawing water and nutrients from soil, hydroponic produce is grown with the roots submerged in nutrient-fortified water. Aeroponics is a related method in which the roots hang in the air and are regularly misted with water and nutrients. One benefit of hydroponic farming is that it allows large amounts of produce to be grown on a relatively small piece of land and in places where traditional farming would be untenable, such as urban centers, or limited by geography and weather, such as in Alaska. Hydroponic...

Surplus and Scarcity The planet is growing  more food than ever , and yet  millions of people  continue to starve worldwide. People are hungry everywhere  — in the country, in the suburbs. But increasingly, one of the front lines in the war against hunger is in cities. As  urban populations grow , more people find themselves in food deserts, areas with “[l]imited access to supermarkets, supercenters, grocery stores, or other sources of healthy and affordable food,”  according to a report  by the  U.S. Department of Agriculture. New technologies are changing the equation, allowing people to grow food in places where it was previously difficult or impossible, and in quantities akin to traditional farms. Farming at New Heights Urban farms can be as simple as traditional small outdoor community gardens, or as complex as indoor vertical farms in which farmers think about growing space in three-dimensional terms. These complex, futuristi...

How urban farmers are learning to grow food without soil or natural light! Growing food in cities became popular in Europe and North America during and immediately after World War II. Urban farming provided citizens with food, at a time when resources were desperately scarce. In the decades that followed, parcels of land which had been given over to allotments and city farms were gradually taken up for urban development. But recently, there has been  a renewed interest  in urban farming – albeit for very different reasons than before. As part of a  recent research project  investigating how urban farming is evolving across Europe, I found that in countries where growing food was embedded in the national culture, many people have started new food production projects. There was less uptake in countries such as Greece and Slovenia, where there was no tradition of urban farming. Yet a few  community projects  had recently been started in those places to...

A greenhouse is a framed or inflated structure covered with a transparent or translucent material in which fruit or vegetable or flower crops can be grown under the controlled climatic conditions of at least partially controlled environment. ... Farming in Greenhouse can provide local employment for educated youth. What does  Rooftop Hydroponic Greenhouse  mean? A rooftop hydroponic greenhouse is a greenhouse located on the roof of a building (usually a commercial building) that has been outfitted with a hydroponic system, as opposed to conventional soil-based containers or raised beds. Rooftop hydroponic greenhouses are becoming more common in urban areas where farmable land is scarce. It is considered easier to outfit a building with a hydroponics system on the roof, rather than a soil garden, because hydroponic gardens are cleaner and less cumbersome. While suburban and rural areas are often home to ground-based greenhouses and gardens, urban areas lack the...

Organic farming creates more profit and yields healthier produce. It’s time it played the role it deserves in feeding a rapidly growing world population. In  1971, then US Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz uttered these unsympathetic words: “Before we go back to organic agriculture in this country, somebody must decide which 50 million Americans we are going to let starve or go hungry.” Since then, critics have continued to argue that  organic agriculture is inefficient , requiring more land than conventional agriculture to yield the same amount of food. Proponents have countered that increasing research could reduce the yield gap, and organic agriculture generates environmental, health and socioeconomic benefits that can’t be found with conventional farming. Organic agriculture occupies only 1% of global agricultural land, making it a relatively untapped resource for one of the greatest challenges facing humanity: producing enough food for a population that could reach...

Rooftop hydroponic systems in cities produce vegetables that are cheaper and healthier than rural farms   Putting roots down on rooftops. On a 1,600-square-foot-rooftop in Guangzhou, China, 14 hydroponic tanks produce hundreds of pounds of vegetables a year, with a potential profit of over $6,000 annually—almost twice the  2015 annual minimum wage in the city , which has one of the highest monthly minimum wages in the country. The hydroponic tanks are part of  study  that shows residents and developers in Guangzhou that their rooftop space might be worth some green. A paper published this past July the journal  Agronomy for Sustainable Development  reports that growing leafy greens in rooftop hydroponic systems can not only produce a steady supply of vegetables—it can also be cheaper than buying store-bought alternatives. It’s one of the first studies outlining a comprehensive business model for hydroponic rooftop farming, a method croppi...