By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
It's been a concept long in the making, and now Korea is jumping on its touted green revolutionary bandwagon. "Farmpartments," "farmscrapers" or vertical farming as it is variously known around the world.
The concept is based on the idea that the top 10 floors of a 15-story apartment building house people, while the lower five are home to plants.
Inevitably, the populated floors produce carbon dioxide, one of the gases behind global warming and climate change, while plants and vegetables on the lower five floors consume a good part of the greenhouse gas, while producing oxygen.
And on Tuesday, Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), the organization behind the drive to introduce the concept in Korea, was talking up its potential.
"A farmpartment is eco-friendly on multiple fronts. First of all, it will substantially reduce emissions of carbon dioxide on their own as plants and vegetables absorb them," SERI researcher Kang Hee-chan said.
"In addition, the farm-cum-apartment building will significantly cut down on conventional energy costs needed to deliver foods to end consumers. Less energy consumption will lead to less carbon dioxide," he said.
A farmpartment is essentially a partially residential building adopting so-called vertical farming, or carrying out large-scale agriculture in urban high-rises. Researchers at Columbia University in New York developed the basic concept of the buildings in 1999.
"The building itself is subject to metabolism, thus helping alleviate climate change, which many experts point out is caused by excess atmospheric carbon," Kang said.
"In other words, the building is a living being with four organs producing carbon dioxide and oxygen as well as consuming the two gases," he said.
Kang said that the hitherto climate change would diminish arable acreage. Hence, he added alternative ways of producing food would need to be embraced.
"Eventually, we expect vertical farming will become the essential way of manufacturing food to feed the ever-increasing population. Vertical farming is an evolution of farming in response to climate change and outdoor farms will eventually be phased out," Kang said.
"A farmpartment is a more advanced vertical farming. As Korea is small in territory but has cutting-edge information technologies, it is a perfect fit for the country in many senses."
Kang said farmpartments would deploy such advanced technologies as robot automation, environmental control systems and light emitting diodes (LED).