Farms in the sky strike roots

What if 8220;eating local8221; in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away...

What if 8220;eating local8221; in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food? Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality.

Despommier8217;s pet project is the 8220;vertical farm8221;, a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott M Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.

When Stringer heard about the concept in June, he said he immediately pictured a 8220;food farm8221; addition to the New York City skyline.

8220;Obviously we don8217;t have vast amounts of vacant land,8221; he said in a phone interview. 8220;But the sky is the limit in Manhattan.8221; Stringer8217;s office is 8220;sketching out what it would take to pilot a vertical farm8221;, and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor8217;s office within the next couple of months, he said.

Despommier estimates that it would cost 20 million to 30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. 8220;I8217;m viewed as kind of an outlier because it8217;s kind of a crazy idea,8221; Despommier, 68, said with a chuckle. 8220;You8217;d think these are mythological creatures.8221;

Despommier, whose name in French means 8220;of the apple trees,8221; has been spreading the seeds of his radical idea in lectures and through his Web site. He says his ideas are supported by hydroponic vegetable research done by NASA and are made more feasible by the potential to use sun, wind and wastewater as energy sources. Several observers have said Despommier8217;s sky-high dreams need to be brought down to earth.

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8220;Why does it have to be 30 stories?8221; said Jerry Kaufman, professor emeritus of urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. 8220;Why can8217;t it be six stories? There8217;s some exciting potential in the concept, but I think he overstates what can be done.8221;