Vertical Farming Puts Pigs High in the Sky

They're not the most traditional tenants, but pigs, poultry, and crops might be reared in city skyscrapers of the future, drastically reducing environmental damage caused by traditional farms, Scientific American reports. Engineering airflow inside glass towers remains tricky, but the potential for a year-round growing season in the face of a booming world population has some urban developers looking to integrate skyscraper farms.

“When it’s 98 degrees and 80% humidity outside, we humans sit inside a controlled environment that is 72 degrees and 25% humidity,” says professor Dickson Despommier, a champion of the movement. We can do the same for our crops, he says, with a 30-story farm covering one city block feeding 50,000 people annually, and locally—with no fertilizer runoff, trucking costs, and pesticides involved.
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