The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century by Dickson Despommier

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From the Publisher

Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University, is internationally famous for coming up with and championing the idea of vertical farming, and this book will be the first in the world to popularize his idea. These farms, grown inside tall city buildings, would transform the way we grow fruit, vegetables, poultry, and fish. The use of vertical farms can prevent many of the serious problems we are currently facing, including but not at all limited to pollution of groundwater and drinking water by use of toxic chemicals, using fossil fuels to transport our food, and ruined harvests due to climate catastrophe or crop infestation. Vertical farms can be the centerpieces of self-reliant cities of the future as well as a life-saving and peace-sowing solution for countries with little arable land.

In the tradition of recent bestsellers such as THE WORLD WITHOUT US and classics like THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT CITIES by Jane Jacobs, Dickson Despommier s book will describe how these new cities would work, and illustrate what they will look like. As we face the challenges of rapid population growth and dwindling sources of food, water and energy, the book will also be an urgent call to action.

"Right now we're losing the sustainability game in a big way, so we're going to need all the wild cards we can turn over. This book makes the case that urban agriculture can go vertical as well as horizontal, putting all those expanses of pretty glass to some actual use!" --Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

The Huffington Post

"Despommier's...ingenious idea...could ultimately ease the world's food, water, and energy crises."

New York Magazine

"Nobody has ever dreamed as big as Dr. Dickson Despommier."

Scientific American

"[Despommier] has quickly become the central figure in what could be a worldwide revolution in food production and waste reduction."