Old New Jersey Factory to House Earth’s Largest Vertical Farm

Pretty good idea.

Thanks for the bump.
I thought this was share worthy.

You can see the wave....people are sick of GMO's and chemicals in their food.

More to come like this no doubt.

Very cool. Thanks for posting.

I like this. Hope it is very successful. Reminds me of Tower Garden concept. I get a huge crop of vegetables and fruits from my one TowerGarden.

This is the future of farming. The only way I see in the future to grow healthy foods will be in closed loop systems. The water savings alone is worth it. The ability to end chemical run off is a huge plus. The unstable magnetic field, ozone issues, radiation, aluminium, and salt toxicity all pose huge issues in traditional farming in the future. My hope is that it will not become a totally automated system, removing the human element. That is one of the most overlooked nutrients plants need. We could provide many jobs and great food is we built these around every city. Lowered impact due to less travel to market and more nutritious food. The less time from harvest to table provides for higher nutritious value.

With this much food growing per sqft and with almost no water, the argument that the planet is over-populated goes by the wayside.

Plus, this is much higher quality food than grains (GMO or otherwise).

There is one white male pictured in the promo so I'm going to assume he's gay.

growing food in abandoned buildings? I guess in a few years Detroit will be the nation's bread basket. Must be that they are preparing to come after the farmers next.

not an efficient way to farm. a tomato from that facility will probably cost upwards of 5 to 7 dollars. no thanks.

This makes me wonder if there is going to be a change in supply and demand in the market soon.

I live in NJ and have told people to do this FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS!

Newark and Camden have had a HUGE ongoing urban development program and is throwing money at people who can bring business to them.

I use to work up at Bell Atlantic (then Verizon) up there and was involved in personal projects as ab investor in my off time. It's a no brained and you're going to see this start popping up everywhere.

Great post OP thanks :)

With solar panels, rain water collection (still legal here) and lED lights this is a very cost effective way to grow food.

moronic fools are using cloth plants rather than HEMP.

the future what about the vertical gardens of ancient past? Like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

we could use more nut orchards if certain crops go to vertical

Yep. Also, a soil less environment has been repeatedly shown to produce less nutritious fare and the subtle richness of a fruit or vegetable is lacking. It's like a multi-vitamin supplement cannot exactly produce the nutrient composition in a piece of fruit. Also this type of growing does not rule out the possibility of mutagenesis (which is not even on the radar screen and just as bad) or use of GMO seed.

If they can capture the correct wavelength of light that exactly replicates a growing season (which normal LED's do not have) and can reproduce soil micro and macro compositional and nutrient content ideal for the produce at hand (which currently it does not,) it might work beneficially, but I don't think technology is quite there yet.

I have yet to see a REAL (not a marketing tool via video, images, display, or mock-ups) aquaponics system that is without problems, including problems of sustainability. There are still significant inputs in knowledge, money, time, and energy.

In my opinion, if growers do not establish for themselves a core set of values (indepedent of green multi-national corporations)then ALL artificial technologies and methods of growing food in the name of sustainability will mean that all that we produce in the name of food will become less and less natural, diverse, and hardy over time.

How organic can it be using water from New Jersey? I was a kid when the bags of garbage came up on the Jersey Shore and lived near Cyanamid.

On the flipside, they can heat the factory by burning old tires and garbage for heat during the winter.

For the people that don't get Jersey humor, my first job was working a farm in Somerset County that is long gone and covered by strip malls and track row housing.

A better idea, instead of vertical farms in NJ, is simply get NJ to turn cannibal and feed themselves that way.

This

Oh yea...about the water antibiotics, and other toxic shit!!

Until the EPA gets "wind of it" on the burning of tires!

OMFG. Yes.

They tried this in another abandoned factory in NYC maybe ten years ago, and were bankrupt within a year.

At the end of the day, it's all about energy input and output, and it's hard to compete with the sun in term of efficiency. The advancements in red/blue LEDs may help there, though.

The challenge is that it doesn't take much to disrupt large scale hydroponic environments. Dirt and sun provide a "buffer zone" that disappears when you move indoors. Mechanical failures rapidly lead to crop failures, and pathogens move through a facility rapidly when the rest of mother nature isn't there to balance them out.

In the end, the solution isn't concentrating agriculture into big centralized solutions like this, any more than the solution to our monetary problems is central banks. It's decentralization, with everyone doing their part and growing what they can where they can, rather than relying on these kinds of solutions.

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... awesome concept ... and really needed ...
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... now ... how much TAXPAYER $$$$$$ will be needed? ...
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I agree with all your points here. I am more interested in efficient ways of growing in difficult environments. There are old time farming books that have tremendous insight on creating oasis in less than ideal environments...

Things that pop in my mind are things like simply orientations, height and depth, interactions with weeds and plants, dew ponds, use of waste woods to create soils and minimize water evaporation....the list of old-time growing techniques is vast and most of them ARE efficient and sustainable. It's working with the environment at hand instead of creating artificial environments.

I live in New Jersey and my water is from a pristine, ancient aquifer derived from a Canadian glacier.

I see wildlife everywhere that was simply not visible 20 years ago (I put that down to the trickle-up effect of the banning of DDT).

I ride on a motorcycle all over this state and it is a gem.

Old tires and garbage have to go somewhere, but seeing the trajectory in NJ in the past 20 years, we'll figure out a novel and efficient solution for that, too.

I get Jersey humor ... keep it up and let people think it's a disgusting urban wasteland here ... that way there will be fewer dumbass rednecks clogging up the roads and beaches.

Dumb question here. Any relaton to agenda 21?

So tell us genius, where and how and with what energy source are these globe saving solar panels made? What are the manufacturing inputs, the net energy expenditure and the time and money required to recoup, excluding cheating, such as government incentives?

Thought so.

Monsanto will have really good banned soon. Or they will go out of biz

of course there is.

herd the chattel into the cities, restrict their movements, and then feed them aeroponic/hydroponic food that is still more likely than not going to be of the GMO variety in order to grow faster with less water/air/light than natural crops, all the while the elites who still have freedom of movement are eating the truly organic, nutrient rich foods grown in the earth like nature intended.

I've also yet to see one of these projects produce anything more than greens. They're barely able to produce leaves, much less an actual vegetable. Man cannot live on lettuce alone.

They'd be better of turning it into a giant oyster mushroom facility. They'd get more calories and vitamins out of the same energy inputs, and in the process could convert waste paper from the area into usable compost in order to rebuild nearby soil to sustain real crops.

Look at all those happy townies randomly going in every direction in a public place. Including those 2 that look like they're waiting for a subway.

What are they going to grow? Soy and lentils for soylent green?