I’m listening to Dixon Despommier’s 2010 book Vertical Farming. I was expecting an architect-y, design-y kind of book, but it turns out Despommier is an ecologist and his main message is ecological. He believes the current system of farming has been a disaster for the planet’s ecosystems and that it is also headed for a catastrophic collapse with current and increased demands for food. His argument is to bring most agriculture into high rises in urban areas where it can be very carefully controlled. This would also allow the re-wilding of most land currently devoted to agriculture worldwide.

He argues that this an economical choice when the value of ecosystem services is considered (although he simultaneously makes this argument and rails against the idea of monetizing ecosystems at all). I’m a little more than halfway through the book and I haven’t gotten to the part where he argues that the cost of using artificial light rather than taking advantage of free and abundant sunlight is offset by other costs. I assume he is going to get to that. I also wonder if he is going to address the idea that removing one limit (in this case, the amount of food that can be produced with the planet’s available land and sunlight) in the long term could allow us to continue growing the population until we hit another limit. These are a couple questions I am curious how we will address, but overall I am enjoying the book. He does briefly bring up the idea that this could be a step toward moving into space or colonizing other planets.