Vertical Farming

Vertical farming is a novel method of crop production that involves raising crops stacked on top of one another in a climate controlled setting. Vertical farming offers a number of advantages over traditional agriculture, primarily dramatically reduced water use and increased crop output. Due to the climate controlled nature of vertical farming, food can be produced year round regardless of climatic conditions. Do you want to grow fresh watermelon in Siberia during the dead of winter? With vertical farming you can! 

​

We at BRS advocate the use of vertical farming, because of its ability to offer unprecedented opportunities for environmental restoration.  Right now around 70% of the habitable land on earth is being used for some form of agriculture. This will make restoring various ecological processes required to fight climate climate collapse impossible. Ecosystems need uninterrupted tracts of land in order to remain functional and our current agricultural systems simply require too much land. 

​

The space efficiency of vertical farming is a natural solution to this problem, with vertical farming, you can save tremendous amounts of land for environmental restoration. For example, there are shipping containers that have been repurposed into vertical farms that can produce as much produce as 3 acres of land.

​

Vertical farms also use at least 90% less water than normal farms and use literally no pesticides, dramatically reducing farming's environmental impacts. Farming is also the biggest source of human-wildlife conflict and is responsible for incalculable levels of wildlife loss. Vertical farming nips this conflict right in the bud by creating a farming environment that is completely inaccessible to wildlife. Natural ecosystems are the most optimal method of sequestering carbon and we strongly recommend that governments support this burgeoning industry as much as possible.