The idea of producing products right in the city is not new. This practice was used in times of wars and food crises. For example, in 1893, residents of Detroit, gripped by depression, planted potatoes in urban wastelands. During the First and Second World Wars, "victory gardens" appeared in the UK, Canada and the USA, where citizens grew vegetables and fruits for the needs of the population. Such spontaneous mini-farming reduced the load from the main food industries, which primarily worked for the needs of the front.
Today, city farming is again becoming a popular food-tech direction among the urban population, which is steadily growing. Let it be small, but its own, local economy supplies the citizen with an environmentally friendly product "right from the garden." Located as close as possible to the sales market, city farms guarantee transparency of the supply chain and simply good quality of products - without preservatives, which increase the shelf life of products brought from afar, pesticides and other "chemicals". In addition, the carbon footprint is reduced due to very short transport logistics.
Conventional farming methods, on the contrary, involve significant environmental costs. This sector depletes fresh water reserves, occupies large tracts of land and produces billions of tons of greenhouse gases in the process of growing and transporting products. With an urban farm, everything is different: it can be arranged indoors, on a small plot of land or even underground, while using a minimum of natural resources.
And city farms are also needed for education. In the city, children meet products already packaged in separate packages, and on the farm you can see with your own eyes how carrots grow from a seed, how potatoes bloom and what bread or juice is actually made from. In addition, gardening and communication with nature, according to British scientists, is a good way to relax and unwind.
Vertical farming is the most popular model of city farming in an urban environment. It is actively used in Europe, the USA, Japan and more recently in Russia, and not only in Moscow, but also in the regions.
On a vertical farm, plants are grown on racks mounted on top of each other. Such a multi—tiered structure can be installed on the street or in any room - for example, in an old factory, in a basement, in a warehouse, in an office or even in a container for cargo transportation.
Modern devices for vertical farming allow you to control and set the desired levels of temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, light, nutrient concentration and soil acidity, depending on the type of plant you have planted. On a multi-tiered farm, you can grow different types of greens, vegetables, fruits and flowers. American researchers have found out that tomatoes, lettuce, chili peppers, bell peppers, strawberries, cucumbers, leafy herbs and greens bring the maximum profit here.
If you are planning to open a large-scale city farm, you need to be prepared for considerable expenses. These include renting a suitable room, expensive high—tech equipment, its maintenance and one of the biggest expense items - electricity payments.
Before opening a vertical farm, it is worth making sure whether there is a demand for such products and customer potential in the selected city. Scientists from the Institute of Urban Horticulture at Cornell University have estimated that the roof area in New York is 15,482 hectares, which is 445 times the size of public gardens in the city. The transformation of even a small part of these spaces into city farming opens up great opportunities for the development of urban agriculture.
Parisians are fed by the largest rooftop farm with an area of 14 thousand m2, more than 60 species of plants are grown on the roof of a supermarket in Brussels, in Hong Kong the farm is located at an altitude of 300 meters, and plants grow on the roof of a Boston hospital, from which dishes are prepared for patients. In addition to plants in Germany, for example, fish are bred on roofs, and bees are bred in Moscow.
Mushrooms are an ideal option for city farming, because they are grown indoors or in basements, and they are easy to find in any city. Abandoned parking lots and bomb shelters, office and industrial buildings, warehouses, factories and cellars are perfect. Mushrooms do not need a lot of light and heat, so energy costs will not be as large as with vertical farming.
In 2020, the mushroom growing industry was estimated at about $46 billion. The cumulative annual growth rate is projected at 9.5% in the period from 2021 to 2028.
One of the reasons for the high demand for mushrooms is their health benefits and relative availability. In addition, they are in demand in restaurants all over the world, where they are often served as snacks and side dishes. Urban mushroom production is especially important, since mushrooms live only a few days, which means that the supplier must be as close as possible to his consumer.
