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

Author: Dickson Despommier

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Unabridged: 6 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/12/2010

Synopsis

When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big—he thought up. Despommier's stroke of genius, the vertical farm, has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face, including:

—Allowing year-round crop production

—Providing food to areas currently lacking arable land

—Immunity to weather-related crop failure

—Reuse of water collected by dehumidification of the indoor environment

—New employment opportunities

—No use of pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides

—Drastically reduced dependence on fossil fuels

—No crop loss due to shipping or storage

—No agricultural runoff

—And many more

Vertical farming can be located on abandoned city properties, creating new urban revenue streams. They will employ lots of skilled and unskilled labor. They can be run on wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal energy. They can be used to grow plants for pharmaceutical purposes or for converting gray water back into drinking water.

In the tradition of the bestselling The World Without Us, this is a totally original landmark work destined to become a classic. With stunning illustrations and clear and entertaining writing, this book will appeal to anyone concerned about America's future.

About Dickson Despommier

Dr. Dickson Despommier spent thirty-eight years as a professor of microbiology and public health in environmental health sciences at Columbia University, where he has won the Best Teacher Award six times and received the national 2003 American Medical Student Association Golden Apple Award for teaching. His work on vertical farms has been featured on such top national media as BBC, French National Television, CNN, The Colbert Report, and The Tonight Show, as well as in the New York Times, Time, Scientific American, and the Washington Post. He has been invited by the governments of China, India, Mexico, Jordan, Brazil, Canada, and Korea to work on environmental problems. He is one of the visionaries featured at the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology. Dickson lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Rachel on February 07, 2011

Interesting overview of the idea. One or two really outstanding facts, but in general the writing could be tighter. It's still worth reading, but it's more like reading an extended Wired article than a book.......more

Goodreads review by Jay on April 02, 2016

I started off greatly disappointed with this book. I expected from the title that the book would cover vertical farming in urban areas in some depth. I had recently attended a talk by the folks growing vegetables on the roof of McCormick Place in Chicago, and had seen multiple TED talks on urban far......more

Goodreads review by Book on October 18, 2010

The Vertical Farm Feeding The World in the 21st Century by Dr, Dickson Despommer This book is both utopian and visionary. However, I also found it to lacked some attribution for where the science and some of the philosophy for the things which he is describing are coming from. He does not describe s......more

Goodreads review by Elijah on March 02, 2018

This book was a nice introduction to the idea of vertical farming. There is a lot we stand to gain from the widespread adoption of vertical farming, and it may even be necessary to move more towards this in the coming decades due to population growth of the world alone. Dr. Despommier covers the bene......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on October 14, 2024

At first glance, Vertical Farms have the dint of the exact kind of snake-oil bullshit that routinely comes out of Silicon Valley that is often rendered in tacky futurist artwork and overall does not seem to be a practical, realistic, or even requested solution to a problem that doesn't exist. This t......more

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