Skyscraper Farming

24 per cent of the world's 11.5 billion hectares of cultivated land has already undergone human-induced soil degradation particularly through erosion, according to a recent study by the UK Government Office for Science. B The global population is expected to exceed nine billion by 2050 - up a third from today's level and studies suggest that food production will have to go up by 70 per cent if we are to feed all of those new mouths. This means that scientists will have to develop new ways of growing crops if we are to avoid a humanitarian crisis. Indeed, UN Food and Agriculture Organization figures suggest that the number of undernourished people is already growing. And with escalating climate change, crop yields in many areas have been projected to decline. C With this in mind, some scientists and agricultural experts are advocating an innovative alternative to traditional farming whereby skyscrapers packed with shelf based systems for growing vegetables on each storey -known as 'vertical farms' - could hold the key to revolutionising agriculture. Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier claims that vertical farming could boost crop yields many times over. A single 20-storey vertical farm could theoretically…