Vertical Farm (Abstract)
ABSTRACT
Cagayan De Oro City is a rapidly growing urban center, and with it comes complications of food supply and land scarcity. The relationship of Agriculture and Urban Expansion is tied with land and water consumption – As cities and populations grow, agricultural land is consumed first to facilitate this expansion.
Thus, Agriculture must expand by consuming more land. Even at present the City is already dependant on its neighbors (primarily Bukidnon) to feed its inhabitants. As Cagayan De Oro transitions to a fully urbanized city, its food requirements will only increase, prompting its neighbors to eat up more land for agriculture. And as those neighbors develop, their populations will also grow, and their towns will slowly become urbanized. While the local tropical climate and abundance of land is capable of supporting the population in the short term, certain future variables factor in to make it more difficult.
To remedy the multitude of problems faced by Cagayan, and all other developing cities like it, a Proposed Vertical Farm is made to answer these issues. The Vertical Farm attempts to address several critical issues – first and foremost is feasible and profitable productivity. Each Hectare of farming area in a vertical farm has a higher output of crops than traditional farming. The crop produced must also be salable at reasonable price.
Further, the Vertical Farm features several sustainable features in its design. First is a closed loop water system that recycles waste water- the Vertical farms themselves require very little. As no water is lost to the soil and is directed to the plants, water consumption is reduced by 80-90%. Another matter, the prevalence of tropical pests and diseases is greatly minimized by the usage of a closed environment.
The Proposed Vertical Farm, in practice, meets all the set objectives. However, in economic terms, the Vertical Farm must concentrate on high value crops to sustain its operations in its first years
Cagayan De Oro City is a rapidly growing urban center, and with it comes complications of food supply and land scarcity. The relationship of Agriculture and Urban Expansion is tied with land and water consumption – As cities and populations grow, agricultural land is consumed first to facilitate this expansion.
Thus, Agriculture must expand by consuming more land. Even at present the City is already dependant on its neighbors (primarily Bukidnon) to feed its inhabitants. As Cagayan De Oro transitions to a fully urbanized city, its food requirements will only increase, prompting its neighbors to eat up more land for agriculture. And as those neighbors develop, their populations will also grow, and their towns will slowly become urbanized. While the local tropical climate and abundance of land is capable of supporting the population in the short term, certain future variables factor in to make it more difficult.
To remedy the multitude of problems faced by Cagayan, and all other developing cities like it, a Proposed Vertical Farm is made to answer these issues. The Vertical Farm attempts to address several critical issues – first and foremost is feasible and profitable productivity. Each Hectare of farming area in a vertical farm has a higher output of crops than traditional farming. The crop produced must also be salable at reasonable price.
Further, the Vertical Farm features several sustainable features in its design. First is a closed loop water system that recycles waste water- the Vertical farms themselves require very little. As no water is lost to the soil and is directed to the plants, water consumption is reduced by 80-90%. Another matter, the prevalence of tropical pests and diseases is greatly minimized by the usage of a closed environment.
The Proposed Vertical Farm, in practice, meets all the set objectives. However, in economic terms, the Vertical Farm must concentrate on high value crops to sustain its operations in its first years