FibrillatorD

Wouldn't leave the 3rd world with much of any competitive advantage, assuming all the talk is true about wasting energy, despite the kind of highly-specialized system of food manufacturing we have today.

I don't have any data, but remember those assembly lines with live hanging skinless pigs being polled around a butchering factory? It might not be humane, but its efficient.

I'm assuming the same kind of efficiency holds for fruits and veggies. Again, the numbers, 40-1, stated above sure sounds bad. But how does the ratio compare to an autarky?

Actually, by cutting out transportation costs, vertical farming would bring us full circle, wouldn't it?

dalem

So what?

-dale

FibrillatorD

Yeah, its not enough for the billion or so people scraping small plots of land to face irrational 1st-world agricultural subsidies and banana quotas. After all, most of them have good manufacturing jobs waiting for them in the city.

Besides the whole like compassion for your fellow man thing, its in the 1st-world consumer's best interest for the 3rd world's farmers to gain access to 1st world markets, where we're at a competitive disadvantage.

Moral argument aside, why shouldn't this happen, Dale?

Parihaka

Oh aye, but you have to offset it against this only being useful in high population density areas. Which means land costs are extremely high and ongoing, construction costs are high and carry their own carbon costs, and transportation of food over long distances is extremely cheap, especially by sea.
To offset the high land value and construction costs, the product has to be high value, so is only really useful for niche market products or it simply won't be cost effective. great for specialist mushrooms for instance, but sod all use for rice.

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Parihaka

We already have the same efficiencies by the way, they're called hydroponics and glasshouses, and cost only a fraction of both the construction, land costs, and energy requirements of this proposal.

Ironduke

A building in the Midwest has a 1 in 70 million chance of getting hit by a tornado. There's insurance for that, I assume. The WTC was insured, for example.

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Ironduke

Land may be expensive right at the city center, but it can be bought cheap in a suburb or some other area of the city.

For all practical purposes, this building is just a very tall greenhouse. I don't see how it would be expensive, after all, it's not like it would have the costs associated with an office building or residential high-rise.

Greenhouse farming has been shown to be profitable... why couldn't a multi-story greenhouse be profitable?

Parihaka

yes it can, but still far more expensive than in a rural area, so again it still has the competition cost with cheap arable land.

It can be, but just like greenhouse farming, it's only really useful for high value niche market produce. The trick is finding land suitably cheap. The building is just set-up cost vs return, but the same costs of structure, safety, and climate control would still apply as with an apartment complex, and might have greater costs related especially to the climate control and durability of materials.

JAD_333

Brave new world. One hellova salad bar. The inevitable consequence of rising population. I hear a city kid in some future time asking, "mom, what is dirt?" All kidding aside, these high rise farms could be prefabbed and stacked by cranes and dismantled easily as a city grows and needs land.

But I still wonder whether finding solutions to the problems we create is better than not creating the problems in the first place.

I wonder at all the factories pumping out products, many of which we really don't need. It seems weird that raw materials goes in one end and things come out the other, make their way into our homes, get used, then are thrown away or recycled. It's so bad that the storage business is booming. What do you do with your old stuff when your garage, basement and closets are full? Rent a storage unit. I'd rather give stuff away than pay rent to store a bunch of plastic junk. Ever try to give away a 4 year old computer?

Oh well, this is a subject for a separate thread.

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omon

i know what you mean, i tryed very hard to give away 36" 2 years old crt tv, couldn,t find anyone.

dalem

I'm not saying it shouldn't. I am saying that I don't care if it doesn't. The problem in the Third World is based on bad governments, not bad markets. Get good governments in Whereveristanesia and we will beat a path to their door to buy and sell everything and everything from their people.

Leave bad governments in place and all the money, resources, and farm towers on the planet won't make a bit of difference to them.

-dale

FibrillatorD

There are well over 100 members of the WTO. The path has already been beaten pretty bare, but its a one-way street.

Its hypocritical to push liberalization without dropping our own barriers to foreign imports.

dalem

Why?

-dale

FibrillatorD

Because joining is slightly less bad than not joining, in most cases.

dalem

Joining what, in this case?

-dale