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'Vertical farms' to be introduced
A model for "vertical farm" proposed by Ecologist Dickson Despommier / Courtesy of Twitter
By Ko Dong-hwan
Seoul City Hall is planning to introduce “vertical farms.”
The farms would be three stories high, with vegetables and crops grown on the second and third floors, while the first floor would serve as a classroom for teaching agriculture, city officials said Tuesday.
The farms will be computer controlled to provide the right light, temperature and humidity, and check carbon dioxide levels.
The western district of Yangcheon will be home to the first farms.
Ecologist Dickson Despommier introduced the concept of vertical farms at Columbia University in 1999, promoting mass commercial cultivation of plants in skyscrapers.
Vertical farming already operates in Japan. Japanese electronics company Panasonic built the world’s first vertical farm in Singapore, which delivered quality fruit and vegetables to restaurants in Japan.
Dickson Despommier
Korea attempted its first vertical farm in the city of Namyangju in Gyeonggi Province in 2009. The plan was stopped when it was not considered cost effective.
“Normal vinyl houses cost 200,000 won ($182) to 300,000 won ($273) per pyeong (9,917 square meters) to build,” Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs official Lee Young-sik said in a report on the farms. “Glass greenhouses, meanwhile, cost one million won ($911), whereas a vertical farm costs 10 million won ($9,110). Despite the differences in the costs of building the farms, the crops’ prices were all similar, so cost-effectiveness wasn’t good for the vertical farm.”
The Seoul government says the reason for the vertical farms is not commercial gain, but to develop new technology and expertise in this method of agriculture.