Are vertical farms the next necessary step in agriculture?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 month 2 weeks (www.sciam.com)

Scientific American here highlights urban farming. The idea is that we spend all this time, water and energy not only growing and fertilizing plants the old-fashioned way but then transporting the food products all the way from the farms to the cities, where most of the people live and where--by 2050, a whole lot more people are going to live.

The article describes growing fruits and vegetables inside tall glass buildings like some kind of modern-day hanging gardens (I wonder if they give +2 happy faces like in Civilization). We've got construction and glassmaking technology. We've got lightweight soils, hydroponics, and aeroponics. Let's use 'em!

According to Dickson Despommier of Columbia University, what we wouldn't need would be any kind of direct genetic modification (although technically any kind of breeding or domestication is genetic modification). What he is promoting is essentially just a large, well-organized greenhouse on primo real estate. Most fruit and veggie crops can already do that.

Perhaps I've been biased by Scientific American's other recent article, on the way the brain percieves probability, but this reminds me very much of some of the early ideas for airports in cities. People came up with some beautiful geometric arrays, some of them on top of skyscrapers, because they had no idea about the magnitude of noise and pressure that would be involved (in fairness, the aircraft of the period were less heavy than today's). I have to wonder if this is another pretty picture.

Keywords: agriculture food energy aeroponics hydroponics genetic engineering