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September 29, 2005

Green Acres In Skyscrapers

From Wired News:

TnpTens of thousands of empty storage containers are stacked in towers along I-95 across from the harbor in Newark, New Jersey. They're heaped there in perpetuity, too cheap to be shipped back to Asia but too expensive to melt down.

Where many might see a pile of garbage, Lior Hessel sees, of all things, an organic farm. Those storage containers would be ideal housing for miniature farms, he believes, stacked one upon another like an agricultural skyscraper, all growing fresh organic produce for millions of wealthy consumers. And since the crops would be grown with artificial lighting, servers, sensors and robots, the cost of labor would consist of a single computer technician's salary.

More here. (and OrganiTech's website)

Posted by Josh Smith at 01:10 AM | Permalink

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Comments

This is a great post, I am visiting Amsterdam and looking at creating sustainable community projects made out of a modular system or a shipping containers. And so refreshing to hear about doing profitable business in vertical farms of shipping container, very inventive. Here are some links that are projects under development:
www.project-lifeline.org
http://www.continea.com/
http://www.tempohousing.com/
http://www.hollandcomposites.nl/index.php?t=main&s=1&m=150&a=1001&f=w&p=44

Shabbir

Posted by: Shabbir | Sep 29, 2005 5:16:57 AM

That was a great comment, as well. Thanks a lot for the links.

I've always talked to people about the idea of running vertical robotic farms, and they've always looked at me like I was insane. Feels nice to be somewhat vindicated. This whole idea of creating these modular systems from recycling these old shipping containers is quite genius, though.

Posted by: Josh Smith | Sep 29, 2005 8:53:04 AM

Does the idea of "manufacturing" organic crops with robots and artificial light seem like an oxymoron to anyone else? Organic may just mean no artificial pesticides, herbicides, etc. to the government, but in a larger sense I believe it means growing produce the way it would grow in nature. That means sun. Anyway, check out my blog post on http://www.farmermarketing.blogspot.com>organic produce to read a more detailed discussion of this topic.

Posted by: Handsome Rob | Sep 29, 2005 12:39:19 PM

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