Urban ag

Earth's population will level off toward the end of this century at around 10 billion. But at this point, it's 7 billion and still growing. By 2050, some say that 70% of the world's population will live in cities. 

That's a lot more people, and transporting food into those cities is a growing challenge. It can be done, but there's a financial cost to it and maybe a cost in quality. One company working on solutions to these coming challenges puts their goal this way: 

"We need to integrate food production into city infrastructure"

Image: world.wng.org

Urban farmers have been experimenting for years with different approaches. Hydroponics combines growing greens with growing fish in a renewing water cycle. In Milwaukee and other cities, unused city lots are turned into compact city farms.

Land is more expensive in cities than in the country. More intense cultivation on less land could be a solution if the urban farm goes vertical instead of horizontal.

Tomorrow . . a Swedish firm plans to farm vertical