The question that addresses all the humanity is: how to provide water and food for the increased number of people worldwide, while having in mind that the arable land required to feed 6.8 billion people is 17.840.000 km²?
Providing healthy and quality food in the best way requires sustainable and innovative solution. One of the solutions that implies a new conceptualisation of food production in urban areas is vertical farming.
The main advantages of vertical farm are: Less use of land and water; No agriculture runoff; year round crop production; No agro-cemicals, No fossil fuels; more control of food quality; new employment oppurtinities; purification of grey water into drinking water and can be a solution for families with informal housing by working on vertical farm.
By creating a tower for vertical farming in a residential tower, and using all the resources, even sewage would create an independent ecosystem. There are 120 apartments.
The location is Karachi, Pakistan. It is one of the fastest growing population cities in the world. For 2025 the number of inhabitants is expected to rise to 20 million. Projected annual growth rate for this city is (2011-2025): 2.68%. It is also the seventh city in the world's most populous. It has a density of more than 6,000 people/km2. Three main issues are: 1) Lack of food, 2) Informal habitats, 3) Drinking water.
"Ecosystem Tower" is a response to deforestation and global warming. The vertical farming for the development of agriculture requires less resources than classical ways of cultivating food. Vertical farming uses 96% less land, 98% less water and can win up to 17 vintage per year. In an area of 4 m2 can be planted 1016-20000 plants!
It's called "Ecosystem Tower" because it is believed that it will be working as a natural ecosystem in vertical stretch.
