Fruit and veg, fresh from the skyscraper

[Nipuna]

IF YOU are the kind of person who can afford to be conscientious about what you eat, you are probably torn between rival concerns whenever you visit the supermarket. You want to keep food miles to a minimum, but you also want your greens to taste like they are fresh from the farm.

Most of us, however, don't live in areas where those two ambitions are readily compatible. Hence the rising prevalence of refrigerated shipping containers, on the one hand, and pricey urban farmers' markets on the other.

Enter the vertical farm. The idea of intensive cultivation inside purpose-built buildings isn't new, but it's now beginning to make economic and environmental sense, particularly given the booming appetites and megacities of Asia (see "Vertical farms sprouting all over the world").

But will such crops attract shoppers? When it comes to farming, we are accustomed to images of rolling fields and golden sunlight. Marketing vegetables grown in vast racks under the glow of LEDs may present more of a challenge. Still, maybe it won't be long before greengrocers' stands bear the proud boast: "Straight from the fortieth floor".

This article appeared in print under the headline "Skyscraper fresh"