Topsy-turvy

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The Vertical Farm

There’s a new concept being floated by some professors at top universities in the USA called the vertical farm, which they feel will be the future of sustainable farming. This will save land, and will run on alternative sources like wind and solar energy. Communities can also be built up around such farms, apparently people would like to see such a thing in their backyard. Somehow, to me it seems to destroy the ‘traditional’ farm, vast open tracts of land. And what will the government do with all the land that gets freed from building these vertical farms? Urbanize it? Build more cities, factories, corporations?

In India, an agricultural nation, it would take a long time for this concept to catch on. It also seems that this vertical farm would be run by corporations, and not by individual farmers, as farms already are run in that way in the US.

Image courtesy: New York Times