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某日，众小编在讨论现在在外面吃东西有很多问题，很多食品的质量、卫生状况都不能令人放心，还不如“自己动手，丰衣足食”。说着说着，大家不由地想到了在自家屋顶种果蔬这个主意，顿时引起热烈讨论，可见生活在城市里的我们都有一个“田园梦”有待实现。据联合国统计，世界人口到2050年将会增至91亿。联合国粮农组织预计，到那时想要让所有人都吃饱，世界的粮食产量需要增加70%，那意味着土地亩产量与土地耕作面积都要增加。但现在全球可新增的耕作土地分布很不均衡，而且其中很大部分土地由于地理环境、土质等问题只能耕作品种非常有限的作物。那为什么不能把农场往高处建呢？或许，在不远的未来，“垂直农场”能让我们圆梦。下面，让我们一起来了解一下这个大胆的构想吧！
——Maisie
The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will 1)sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would 2)slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. It would also reduce the 3)spoilage that inevitably occurs along the way, says Dickson Despommier, a professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University in New York who is widely regarded as the 4)progenitor of vertical farming, and whose recently published book, The Vertical Farm, is a 5)manifesto for the idea.
Better still, says Dr. Despommier, the use of pesticides, 6)herbicides and7)fungicides can be kept to a bare minimum by growing plants indoors in a controlled environment. Soil erosion will not be a problem because the food will be grown8)hydroponically—in other words, in a 9)solution of minerals dissolved in water. Clever recycling techniques will ensure that only a fraction of the amount of water and nutrients will be needed compared with conventional farming, and there will no problem with agricultural 10)run-off.
It is now possible to 11)tailor the temperature, humidity, lighting, airflow and nutrient conditions to get the best productivity out of plants year round, anywhere in the world, says Gene Giacomelli, director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Centre at the University of Arizona. The technology of hydroponics allows almost any kind of plant to be grown in nutrient-rich water, from 12)root crops like radishes and potatoes to fruit such as melons and even cereals like 13)maize. He and his colleagues have created the South Pole Food Growth Chamber, which has been in operation since 2004. This semi-automated hydroponic facility in 14)Antarctica is used to provide each of the 65 staff of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station with at least one fresh salad a day during the winter months. The chamber has a floor area of 22 square metres and produces a wide range of fruit and vegetables with little more than the occasional 15)topping up of water and nutrients. It does, however, require artificial lighting because the station is without natural daylight for most of the winter.
And that highlights a big potential 16)stumbling-block for vertical farming. In the Antarctic the need to provide artificial light is a small price to pay for fresh food, given the cost of importing it. But elsewhere the cost of powering artificial lights will make indoor farming prohibitively expensive. Even though crops growing in a glass skyscraper will get some natural sunlight during the day, it won’t be enough. Without artificial lighting the result will be an uneven crop, as the plants closest to the windows are exposed to more sunlight and grow more quickly, says Peter Head, global leader of planning and sustainable development at Arup, a British engineering firm.
Between 2006 and 2009, Dr. Ted Caplow, an environmental engineer and founder of New York Sun Works (NYSW), and his colleagues operated the Science Barge, a floating hydroponic greenhouse moored in Manhattan (it has since moved to17)Yonkers). “It was to investigate what we could do to grow food in the heart of the city with minimal resource-consumption and maximum resource-efficiency,” says Dr. Caplow. The barge used one-tenth as much water as a comparable field farm. There was no agricultural run-off, and chemical pesticides were replaced with natural 18)predators such as 19)ladybirds. Operating all year round, the barge could grow 20 times more than could have been produced by a field of the same size, says Dr. Caplow. Solar panels and wind turbines on the barge meant that it could produce food with near-zero net carbon emissions. But the greenhouses on the barge were only one storey high, so there was not much need for artificial lighting. As soon as you start trying to stack greenhouses on top of each other you run into problems, says Dr. Caplow. Based on his experience with the Science Barge, he has devised a 20)rule of thumb: generating enough electricity using solar panels requires an area about 20 times larger than the area being illuminated. For a skyscraper-sized hydroponic farm, that is clearly impractical.
One idea, developed by Valcent, a vertical-farming firm based in Texas, Vancouver and 21)Cornwall, is to use vertically stacked hydroponic trays that move on rails, to ensure that all plants get an even amount of sunlight. The company already has a 100-square-metre working prototype at Paignton Zoo in 22)Devon, producing rapid-cycle leaf vegetable crops, such as 23)lettuce, for the zoo’s animals. The VerticCrop system ensures an even distribution of light and air flow, says Dan Caiger-Smith of Valcent. Using energy equivalent to running a desktop computer for ten hours a day it can produce 500,000 lettuces a year, he says. Growing the same crop in fields would require seven times more energy and up to 20 times more land and water.
But VertiCrop uses multiple layers of stacked trays that operate within a single-storey greenhouse, where natural light enters from above, as well as from the sides. Even if each floor rotates its crops past the windows so that all plants receive an equal amount of natural light, overall they would get less light, and so produce less 24)biomass, says Dr. Caplow. He prefers the idea of the “vertically integrated greenhouse”. This idea involves the integration of vertical farms into buildings and offices, with plants growing around the edges of the building, sandwiched between two glass layers and rotating on a 25)conveyor. 26)Shrouding buildings with plants solves the natural-light problem for agriculture, acts as a passive form of climate control for the buildings and makes for a nice view.
BrightFarms Systems, a commercial 27)offshoot of NYSW, is working with 28)Gotham Greens to create the world’s first commercial urban hydroponic farm in Brooklyn. When it opens in 2011, the 15,000 square-foot rooftop facility will produce 30 29)tonnes of vegetables a year which will be sold in local stores. Although this is urban hydroponics, not vertical farming, it is a step in the right direction, says Mr. Head. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we saw large retailers with greenhouses on their roofs growing produce for sale in the shop,” he says.
（垂直农场）这一构想是这样的：在摩天大楼的楼层中开发出果园与耕地，全年不断地生产各种农产品，并将此种方法推广至全球各地的城市中。这种做法不仅可以凭空开发出更多的宜耕土地，还可以减少农产品的运输成本，以及长途运输食物过程中所产生的二氧化碳排放量。它还能有效降低生鲜农产品在物流过程中无法避免的腐烂程度，迪克森·德斯波密尔如是说。他是纽约哥伦比亚大学公众与环境健康系的教授，并被公认为是垂直农场这一构想的“鼻祖”，其最近出版的新书《垂直农场》就阐述了这一构想。
德斯波密尔博士表示，在可控的室内环境中栽培植物还能带来更多的好处，比如杀虫剂，除草剂和杀真菌剂的使用都可被控制到最少。土地污染也不再是个问题，因为作物是水培的——换句话说，就是在溶入了矿物质的水中生长。有别于传统栽种方法的是，垂直农场采用智能循环栽培技术，故只需使用少量的水与营养素，而且不会出现农业“径流现象”（编者注：此指农田土壤因农业灌溉充满水分后无法吸收外来的多余水分，如雨水、冰雪融水等，从而出现土壤水分溢出外部的现象，这一现象极易造成土壤污染）。
亚利桑那大学可控环境农业中心主任吉恩·贾科梅利表示，现在，不管你身处世界何地，通过在温室内设定合适的温度、湿度、光照、气流和营养条件，终年都可以栽培农作物，而且收获丰硕。从块根农作物（比如小萝卜和土豆）到水果（比如瓜类），甚至是谷物（比如玉米），水培法几乎可让所有种类的植物在营养液中生长。早在2004年，贾科梅利与他的同事们就创建了名为“南极食品培植房”的项目。他们在南极洲建立了一套半自动化的水培设施，在南极冬季到来时，这套设施可为美国阿蒙森·斯科特南极站的65位工作人员提供至少每天一顿的新鲜沙拉。这一培植房占地22平方米，可生产种类繁多的水果与蔬菜，同时只需消耗更少的水与营养素。不过，这里还是需要人工照明，因为在南极的冬天里，大部分时间内不会出现自然光照。
这突显了垂直农场实施过程中一个潜在的大缺陷。在南极，提供人工照明所需的花费与进口新鲜食品的运输费用相比，可谓微不足道。可在别的地方，使用电源进行人工照明会使得室内栽培的成本变得高不可攀。即使作物是在玻璃墙体的摩天大楼中生长，白天里能得到一些自然光照，但还是远远不足。没有人工光照的话，作物的生长会很不均匀，最靠近窗户的作物由于得到更多的阳光会生长得更快，彼得·海德如是说，他是英国奥雅纳工程咨询有限公司计划与可持续发展部门的总负责人。
在2006到2009年间，非盈利性组织“纽约太阳探秘”的创办者、环境工程师特德·开普罗博士与他的同事们一起运作了“科学驳船”项目，那是一个停泊在曼哈顿的浮动水培温室（现在它已经移动到纽约的扬克斯了）。开普罗博士说：“该项目是为了研究我们能不能在城市中央种植庄稼，以最小的资源消耗来换取最大的效益。”开普罗博士介绍说，这艘驳船上的用水量只有传统农场的十分之一，没有出现农业径流，而且利用像瓢虫这样的害虫天敌来进行防治，而不是化学农药。由于耕作终年不断，与同等面积的田地相比，驳船上可多获20倍以上的收成。驳船使用太阳能与风能运作，因此碳排放量为零。由于驳船上的温室只有一层楼高，因此不太需要人工光照。不过开普罗博士说，一旦温室要一层层地建起来，问题也就来了。根据在“科学驳船”上的经验，他总结出一条经验法则：要为特定面积的土地提供照明，就需要使用约相当于此面积20倍大小的太阳能电池板来提供电力。对于相当于摩天大厦那样规模的水培温室农场来说，这显然很不实际。
威臣公司在美国得克萨斯州、加拿大温哥华市和康沃尔郡都建有垂直农场研究基地，他们对此问题研究出了一个解决办法，就是将垂直堆叠起来的水培托盘放在轨道上运转，这样可以确保所有的植物都能均等获取阳光。该公司在英国德文郡佩恩顿动物园建有100平方米的农场原型，并已投入使用，产出生长周期短的叶菜类作物，如生菜，供动物园的动物们食用。威臣公司的丹·凯奇·史密斯说，他们的垂直种植系统能确保作物得到均等的光照与气流。该系统使用相当于一台台式电脑每天运行10小时所需的电能，即能每年生产出50万棵生菜，他说道。而如果是在普通的田地里栽培同样的作物，则需要耗费七倍以上的能量，以及高达20倍以上的土地和水才能得到同样的收成。
不过威臣公司是在相当于一层楼高的温室内安置多层堆叠的托盘，阳光可从头顶及四周射入室内。开普罗博士说，就算每个楼层的作物都能绕着窗户轮转并获得均等的日光照射，作物得到的光照量还是很少，单位面积内生产的生物量还是较少。他更喜欢“垂直整合型温室”的构想。这一构想提出把垂直农场整合到建筑物与办公室中，作物沿着建筑物边沿生长，像三明治一样被夹在两层玻璃中间，顺着传送带绕圈旋转。用作物覆盖整座建筑物可有效解决作物生长所需的自然光照问题，并可作为建筑物的一种被动式环境气候控制手段，让建筑看起来更美观。
“光明农场系统”是“纽约太阳探秘”组织下属的一家商业分公司，它正与“哥谭绿色”公司在纽约布鲁克林区合作打造世界首个商业运作的城市水培温室农场。这一农场会在2011年投入使用，占地15000平方英尺（等于1394平方米），每年能生产出30公吨蔬菜，并销售给当地的商店。海德先生表示，虽然这只是城市水培温室农场，算不上真正的垂直农场，但这仍是朝着正确的方向走出了一步。他说道：“如果有一天我看到那些大的零售商们在屋顶的温室里栽培作物，然后把农作物在楼下的店铺里卖掉，对此我一点儿都不会感到惊讶。”
——Maisie
The idea is that skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields, producing crops all year round, will 1)sprout in cities across the world. As well as creating more farmable land out of thin air, this would 2)slash the transport costs and carbon-dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances. It would also reduce the 3)spoilage that inevitably occurs along the way, says Dickson Despommier, a professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University in New York who is widely regarded as the 4)progenitor of vertical farming, and whose recently published book, The Vertical Farm, is a 5)manifesto for the idea.
Better still, says Dr. Despommier, the use of pesticides, 6)herbicides and7)fungicides can be kept to a bare minimum by growing plants indoors in a controlled environment. Soil erosion will not be a problem because the food will be grown8)hydroponically—in other words, in a 9)solution of minerals dissolved in water. Clever recycling techniques will ensure that only a fraction of the amount of water and nutrients will be needed compared with conventional farming, and there will no problem with agricultural 10)run-off.
It is now possible to 11)tailor the temperature, humidity, lighting, airflow and nutrient conditions to get the best productivity out of plants year round, anywhere in the world, says Gene Giacomelli, director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Centre at the University of Arizona. The technology of hydroponics allows almost any kind of plant to be grown in nutrient-rich water, from 12)root crops like radishes and potatoes to fruit such as melons and even cereals like 13)maize. He and his colleagues have created the South Pole Food Growth Chamber, which has been in operation since 2004. This semi-automated hydroponic facility in 14)Antarctica is used to provide each of the 65 staff of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station with at least one fresh salad a day during the winter months. The chamber has a floor area of 22 square metres and produces a wide range of fruit and vegetables with little more than the occasional 15)topping up of water and nutrients. It does, however, require artificial lighting because the station is without natural daylight for most of the winter.
And that highlights a big potential 16)stumbling-block for vertical farming. In the Antarctic the need to provide artificial light is a small price to pay for fresh food, given the cost of importing it. But elsewhere the cost of powering artificial lights will make indoor farming prohibitively expensive. Even though crops growing in a glass skyscraper will get some natural sunlight during the day, it won’t be enough. Without artificial lighting the result will be an uneven crop, as the plants closest to the windows are exposed to more sunlight and grow more quickly, says Peter Head, global leader of planning and sustainable development at Arup, a British engineering firm.
Between 2006 and 2009, Dr. Ted Caplow, an environmental engineer and founder of New York Sun Works (NYSW), and his colleagues operated the Science Barge, a floating hydroponic greenhouse moored in Manhattan (it has since moved to17)Yonkers). “It was to investigate what we could do to grow food in the heart of the city with minimal resource-consumption and maximum resource-efficiency,” says Dr. Caplow. The barge used one-tenth as much water as a comparable field farm. There was no agricultural run-off, and chemical pesticides were replaced with natural 18)predators such as 19)ladybirds. Operating all year round, the barge could grow 20 times more than could have been produced by a field of the same size, says Dr. Caplow. Solar panels and wind turbines on the barge meant that it could produce food with near-zero net carbon emissions. But the greenhouses on the barge were only one storey high, so there was not much need for artificial lighting. As soon as you start trying to stack greenhouses on top of each other you run into problems, says Dr. Caplow. Based on his experience with the Science Barge, he has devised a 20)rule of thumb: generating enough electricity using solar panels requires an area about 20 times larger than the area being illuminated. For a skyscraper-sized hydroponic farm, that is clearly impractical.
One idea, developed by Valcent, a vertical-farming firm based in Texas, Vancouver and 21)Cornwall, is to use vertically stacked hydroponic trays that move on rails, to ensure that all plants get an even amount of sunlight. The company already has a 100-square-metre working prototype at Paignton Zoo in 22)Devon, producing rapid-cycle leaf vegetable crops, such as 23)lettuce, for the zoo’s animals. The VerticCrop system ensures an even distribution of light and air flow, says Dan Caiger-Smith of Valcent. Using energy equivalent to running a desktop computer for ten hours a day it can produce 500,000 lettuces a year, he says. Growing the same crop in fields would require seven times more energy and up to 20 times more land and water.
But VertiCrop uses multiple layers of stacked trays that operate within a single-storey greenhouse, where natural light enters from above, as well as from the sides. Even if each floor rotates its crops past the windows so that all plants receive an equal amount of natural light, overall they would get less light, and so produce less 24)biomass, says Dr. Caplow. He prefers the idea of the “vertically integrated greenhouse”. This idea involves the integration of vertical farms into buildings and offices, with plants growing around the edges of the building, sandwiched between two glass layers and rotating on a 25)conveyor. 26)Shrouding buildings with plants solves the natural-light problem for agriculture, acts as a passive form of climate control for the buildings and makes for a nice view.
BrightFarms Systems, a commercial 27)offshoot of NYSW, is working with 28)Gotham Greens to create the world’s first commercial urban hydroponic farm in Brooklyn. When it opens in 2011, the 15,000 square-foot rooftop facility will produce 30 29)tonnes of vegetables a year which will be sold in local stores. Although this is urban hydroponics, not vertical farming, it is a step in the right direction, says Mr. Head. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we saw large retailers with greenhouses on their roofs growing produce for sale in the shop,” he says.
（垂直农场）这一构想是这样的：在摩天大楼的楼层中开发出果园与耕地，全年不断地生产各种农产品，并将此种方法推广至全球各地的城市中。这种做法不仅可以凭空开发出更多的宜耕土地，还可以减少农产品的运输成本，以及长途运输食物过程中所产生的二氧化碳排放量。它还能有效降低生鲜农产品在物流过程中无法避免的腐烂程度，迪克森·德斯波密尔如是说。他是纽约哥伦比亚大学公众与环境健康系的教授，并被公认为是垂直农场这一构想的“鼻祖”，其最近出版的新书《垂直农场》就阐述了这一构想。
德斯波密尔博士表示，在可控的室内环境中栽培植物还能带来更多的好处，比如杀虫剂，除草剂和杀真菌剂的使用都可被控制到最少。土地污染也不再是个问题，因为作物是水培的——换句话说，就是在溶入了矿物质的水中生长。有别于传统栽种方法的是，垂直农场采用智能循环栽培技术，故只需使用少量的水与营养素，而且不会出现农业“径流现象”（编者注：此指农田土壤因农业灌溉充满水分后无法吸收外来的多余水分，如雨水、冰雪融水等，从而出现土壤水分溢出外部的现象，这一现象极易造成土壤污染）。
亚利桑那大学可控环境农业中心主任吉恩·贾科梅利表示，现在，不管你身处世界何地，通过在温室内设定合适的温度、湿度、光照、气流和营养条件，终年都可以栽培农作物，而且收获丰硕。从块根农作物（比如小萝卜和土豆）到水果（比如瓜类），甚至是谷物（比如玉米），水培法几乎可让所有种类的植物在营养液中生长。早在2004年，贾科梅利与他的同事们就创建了名为“南极食品培植房”的项目。他们在南极洲建立了一套半自动化的水培设施，在南极冬季到来时，这套设施可为美国阿蒙森·斯科特南极站的65位工作人员提供至少每天一顿的新鲜沙拉。这一培植房占地22平方米，可生产种类繁多的水果与蔬菜，同时只需消耗更少的水与营养素。不过，这里还是需要人工照明，因为在南极的冬天里，大部分时间内不会出现自然光照。
这突显了垂直农场实施过程中一个潜在的大缺陷。在南极，提供人工照明所需的花费与进口新鲜食品的运输费用相比，可谓微不足道。可在别的地方，使用电源进行人工照明会使得室内栽培的成本变得高不可攀。即使作物是在玻璃墙体的摩天大楼中生长，白天里能得到一些自然光照，但还是远远不足。没有人工光照的话，作物的生长会很不均匀，最靠近窗户的作物由于得到更多的阳光会生长得更快，彼得·海德如是说，他是英国奥雅纳工程咨询有限公司计划与可持续发展部门的总负责人。
在2006到2009年间，非盈利性组织“纽约太阳探秘”的创办者、环境工程师特德·开普罗博士与他的同事们一起运作了“科学驳船”项目，那是一个停泊在曼哈顿的浮动水培温室（现在它已经移动到纽约的扬克斯了）。开普罗博士说：“该项目是为了研究我们能不能在城市中央种植庄稼，以最小的资源消耗来换取最大的效益。”开普罗博士介绍说，这艘驳船上的用水量只有传统农场的十分之一，没有出现农业径流，而且利用像瓢虫这样的害虫天敌来进行防治，而不是化学农药。由于耕作终年不断，与同等面积的田地相比，驳船上可多获20倍以上的收成。驳船使用太阳能与风能运作，因此碳排放量为零。由于驳船上的温室只有一层楼高，因此不太需要人工光照。不过开普罗博士说，一旦温室要一层层地建起来，问题也就来了。根据在“科学驳船”上的经验，他总结出一条经验法则：要为特定面积的土地提供照明，就需要使用约相当于此面积20倍大小的太阳能电池板来提供电力。对于相当于摩天大厦那样规模的水培温室农场来说，这显然很不实际。
威臣公司在美国得克萨斯州、加拿大温哥华市和康沃尔郡都建有垂直农场研究基地，他们对此问题研究出了一个解决办法，就是将垂直堆叠起来的水培托盘放在轨道上运转，这样可以确保所有的植物都能均等获取阳光。该公司在英国德文郡佩恩顿动物园建有100平方米的农场原型，并已投入使用，产出生长周期短的叶菜类作物，如生菜，供动物园的动物们食用。威臣公司的丹·凯奇·史密斯说，他们的垂直种植系统能确保作物得到均等的光照与气流。该系统使用相当于一台台式电脑每天运行10小时所需的电能，即能每年生产出50万棵生菜，他说道。而如果是在普通的田地里栽培同样的作物，则需要耗费七倍以上的能量，以及高达20倍以上的土地和水才能得到同样的收成。
不过威臣公司是在相当于一层楼高的温室内安置多层堆叠的托盘，阳光可从头顶及四周射入室内。开普罗博士说，就算每个楼层的作物都能绕着窗户轮转并获得均等的日光照射，作物得到的光照量还是很少，单位面积内生产的生物量还是较少。他更喜欢“垂直整合型温室”的构想。这一构想提出把垂直农场整合到建筑物与办公室中，作物沿着建筑物边沿生长，像三明治一样被夹在两层玻璃中间，顺着传送带绕圈旋转。用作物覆盖整座建筑物可有效解决作物生长所需的自然光照问题，并可作为建筑物的一种被动式环境气候控制手段，让建筑看起来更美观。
“光明农场系统”是“纽约太阳探秘”组织下属的一家商业分公司，它正与“哥谭绿色”公司在纽约布鲁克林区合作打造世界首个商业运作的城市水培温室农场。这一农场会在2011年投入使用，占地15000平方英尺（等于1394平方米），每年能生产出30公吨蔬菜，并销售给当地的商店。海德先生表示，虽然这只是城市水培温室农场，算不上真正的垂直农场，但这仍是朝着正确的方向走出了一步。他说道：“如果有一天我看到那些大的零售商们在屋顶的温室里栽培作物，然后把农作物在楼下的店铺里卖掉，对此我一点儿都不会感到惊讶。”