(Photo via Greenbiz.com and TonyTheTiger)
ROOFS YOU CAN EAT
Sky Vegetables takes a slightly unique twist in rooftop gardening by covering all the administrative stuff, having others put in the equipment and make its money only from the sale of vegetables. What’s good is that it aims to use proven technologies like solar to help it take off. At the same time its pretty high up there on the technology needs and not very affordable for communities to implement without major government and business investment. That’s probably one of the big criticisms for vertical farming towers that Dickson Despommier envisions too.
Sky Vegetables: Taking Green Roofs to New Heights | GreenBiz.com: “The vision is both simple and elegant: green rooftops, not just as gardens, but as urban agriculture hubs for herbs and edible greens, utilizing off-the-shelf hydroponics and aquaponics equipment in greenhouses to grow food to sell for profit within the community.
The idea came to Agoada just before his senior year at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from which he graduated last year. ‘I saw the community gardens in Chicago and thought that it was fantastic that they were building community by growing food and doing it in the city,’ he told me recently. ‘So I went back my senior year at Wisconsin and received three credits for doing a feasibility study to see if rooftops could be commercial farming locations.’”
HOW INGREDIENTS SET YOU BACK
At the same time embodied energy and lifecycle analysis have to be considered. Even with my work here at FoodCycles I’m always keeping in mind the amount of energy, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that went into making the compost or growing the food. That’s why we try to buy locally as much as possible and to choose ingredients or stuff that’s made with no extra chemicals or fertilizers — gas fuel and chemicals will set you back like crazy. Distance is key and whether it has extra chemicals is even bigger — that’s why local AND organic for food is so big for us. We try our best.
Anyway, can you imagine how much power and chemicals go into making solar panels? I love them lots except we’ve got to keep improving them and putting more money into that technology.
The only solution is if humanity finds the secret of the sun — fusion power and creates completely clean energy. It makes more power than the power you put in. A dream for now — so I guess we’ll have to deal with reality.
CONCLUSION
Either way, Sky Vegetables and other similar city farming projects are definitely a huge step in the right direction. Compared to conventional chemical farming that keeps shipping food over 4000 km away on average (so that’s not local and not organic), Sky Vegetables is still a breath of fresh air. So beautiful kudos if it helps to inspire!
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