Remember that scene in The Martian where Matt Damon’s character, realising he’ll soon run out of food, rescues some leftover potatoes and plants them in an improvised farm on his spaceship, using human waste as fertiliser, and hydrogen extracted from rocket fuel as hydration? Pretty crazy, huh? Sure – until it worked, and he was able to sustain himself from his very own farm, right there… on Mars.
While farmers here on Earth aren’t quite going that far yet, new technology and outside-the-box thinking have led to advances in farming that leave doubt over the future of traditional practices, which are notoriously wasteful of water, energy and fertiliser. What’s more, with research from the highlighting that, by 2050, we’ll need 60 per cent more food than we currently grow, we’re ever more reliant on new technologies to sustain us.
Overcoming the odds: Matt Damon's "martian" had to find clever ways to survive. Source: Fox Movies
Vertical farming, or skyscraper farming, is one such advancement. The idea is deceptively simple – grow a crop vertically up a space, instead of horizontally across it. The technology has been around for a while now, but mainly with gardens. At Sydney’s , for instance, the vertical garden is verdant, with 116 metres of greenery comprising 350 different species, none of which needs soil to grow. (The plants are sown into a special fabric that promotes growth. Light, carbon dioxide, water and nutrients are dispersed regularly through an intricate system of mechanics.) But growing edible crops vertically has proven to be more of a challenge, with even Google conceding defeat last year after failing to sow vertical crops.
AeroFarms have made the seemingly impossible possible – their technology allows plants to grow without soil or sunlight, using . And the result? The farms – there are seven of them across the US, with plans for four more – yield 70 times more product per hectare than regular farming does. With vertical farming, there’s no need for pesticides or fungicides – everything is grown indoors, in controlled environments. Vertical farming also cuts down on transportation costs, as the gardens themselves can be anywhere, including high-density cities. In Japan, Toshiba converted an old warehouse to a high-tech lettuce farm, and in Singapore, Panasonic have invested in vertical farms that grow leafy greens.
And in one of the most densely populated cities in the world – New York City – another nifty idea is about to set sail – literally. Swale is a floating food forest, measuring 35 metres x 10 metres, and will begin its trip up and down the city’s waterways this year. Founder Mary Mattingly hopes the forest will produce around 2200 kilograms of food in six months, based on estimates from other food forests. Swale needs to float because it’s illegal to grow food on public property in New York City – but the waterways, Mattingly says, are up for grabs. All of the food on board is available for free, with Mattingly hopeful that the residents who require the food most will take first dibs.
If all of this sounds too high-tech, take heart that, closer to home, smaller-scale urban farming projects are taking hold – and they might soon come to a suburb near you. In Buderim, Queensland, the project encourages residents to grow edible gardens on their nature strips, a practice known as ‘verge gardening’. From humble beginnings with just one street, the UFS now has 10 more ‘spinoff’ streets, growing everything from pomegranates and persimmons to mangoes and mulberries. A similar project in Sydney’s Dulwich Hill has seen a quiet cul-de-sac transform into an urban Eden. Residents even changed the direction of their downpipes to ensure run-off water would be directed to the gardens outside. Now, the street offers cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and more – all free for the taking, of course.
One of Australia's Urban Food Street projects. Source: Urban Food Street
