我对垂直农场错了。Aerofarms展示了如何使它们真正起作用。

For a long time this TreeHugger was dismissive of vertical farms, agreeing with Adam Stein who wrote that "Using urban real estate in this manner is incredibly wasteful: bad for the economy and bad for the environment. Local food has its merits, but that's what New Jersey is for." As recently as a year ago I was calling them在这么多级别上错误.

我错了。

©Vincent Callebaut Architects

At the time, almost eight years ago, when we were dissing vertical farms, it was all about visions of new towers in the city, expensive purpose-built structures that I thought were "good drawings, lots of ideas and great fun" but unrealistic, like Vincent Callebaut's silly Farmscrapers. I was probably right about that, and Adam Stein was right about New Jersey.

Aerofarms/Screen capture

The vertical farm that is changing the way we think about vertical farms is in fact in Newark, New Jersey, inside an existing old steel warehouse that has been converted rather than an expensive new facility. It's called Aerofarms, and Margaretwrote about it when it was proposed two years ago.

When TreeHugger friends Philip and Hank complained about the economics of vertical farms, they noted in EcoGeek:

农民可以期望他的土地价值约1平方英尺，如果是好的，肥沃的土地。另一方面，摩天大楼的所有者可以期望支付其建筑物每平方英尺的200倍以上。这只是建设的成本。考虑到整个物品中的电力成本，并整天将植物沐浴在人造阳光下，而您的混乱效率低下。仅查看这些数字，您就需要发生两件事，以使垂直农场有意义。您需要食物的价格以将100倍的价格提高到当今的价格，并且您需要垂直农场的生产力，以使传统农场的100倍增加100倍。这些事情都不会发生。

Aerofarms/via

但是，如果您读了伊恩·弗雷泽（Ian Frazier）的纽约人的精彩文章，垂直农场，you find that they did actually solve most of those problems at Aerofarms. The cost of the real estate per square foot is irrelevant, because the plants are stacked in trays eight high.
They are set in a repurposed old building in a city that's very close to New York city but has relatively cheap industrial real estate.

©Aerofarms

Then there are the changes in technology. LED lighting has evolved to where they can tune the lighting to the exact colours that the plants need for photosynthesis, saving huge amounts of electricity and excess heat over the broad fluorescents and metal halide lights of a decade ago.

And water? Using technology developed by inventor Ed Harwood of Ithaca, New York, the plants are suspended in a fabric made from old pop bottles. Frazier writes:

织物是一种薄薄的白色羊毛，在发芽时将种子固定，然后在成熟时保持植物直立。根部延伸到布的下方，在那里它们可用于水和水的喷雾剂。

The air in the building is rich in CO2, the lighting is just right, the nutrients are fed at just the right rate using seventy percent less water, and it is all carefully monitored by computers and technicians.

... each plant grows at the pinnacle of a trembling heap of tightly focussed and hypersensitive data. The temperature, humidity, and CO2 content of the air; the nutrient solution, pH, and electro-conductivity of the water; the plant growth rate, the shape and size and complexion of the leaves—all these factors and many others are tracked on a second-by-second basis. AeroFarms’ micro-, macro-, and molecular biologists and other plant scientists overseeing the operation receive alerts on their phones if anything goes awry. A few even have phone apps through which they can adjust the functioning of the vertical farm remotely.

十年前，我们展示了实验室外套中的人们的视野，在土壤中围绕着许多楼上的植物行走。今天的现实是非常不同的，使用修复的建筑物，高密度种植，几乎没有水和LED照明。这更有意义。伊恩·弗雷泽（Ian Frazier）得出结论：

我想到了该设备产生的果岭的温柔，这是一种自然的简单性，主要是由水和空气由最复杂和集中种类的高科技技巧引起的。沙拉似乎还有很长的路要走。但是，如果确实有效，那么当我们似乎是90亿人类烘烤，渴求地球仪时，谁知道会发生什么呢？

A decade ago we called them pie in the sky, and thought nothing would come of it. Today, I am not so sure. I think I have to eat my words, along with some Aerofarms baby greens the next time I am in New York.