The hanging gardens of the future

Peter Madden sees a future in which cities feed themselves.

By 2020, two-thirds of the world will live in cities, often sprawling megalopolises. Growing populations will put further pressure on land already degraded by over-farming and desertificaion. Given that we are always only a few meals away from anarchy, how will we feed these cities?

There is a strong possibility that – two and a half centuries after the start of the industrial revolution – we will all become farmers again.

Every one of us will own a ‘farm in a box’, which will sit on our balcony, roof or next to a window. Advances in aeroponics – growing in a mist of nutrients, rather like in a rainforest – will give us emissions-neutral food at the heart of our cities.

These boxes would be supplemented by neighbourhood vertical farms housed in the redundant high-rise office blocks we no longer commute to, and the multi-storey carparks we no longer need. They will employ closed-loop systems, generating their own energy and harvesting and recycling rainwater. Front gardens, flat roofs and patches of wasteland will also become mini-market gardens, helping to green, cool and feed the city.

The seeds of this are already being sown. Urbanites want to grow their own – some 100,000 people are now on waiting lists for allotments in the UK, while in France, urban vineyards are fast taking root. The technology is also developing apace. Here in the UK the police recently announced that they are raiding at least three indoor cannabis farms a day, while in the US, NASA is experimenting with aeroponics for space travel. Imagine a few food riots and rocketing food prices in the decade to come, and a new ‘dig for victory’ approach to feeding ourselves starts to seem very likely.

Will this urban farming be a positive trend for sustainability? Many will find the idea of a high-tech world of computer-controlled indoor mini-farms scary. Yet, such urban agriculture could bring climate benefits, put people back in touch with growing food, and provide part of the answer to feeding the world.

Peter Madden is Chief Executive of Forum for the Future. Learn more about Forum's future thinking here. Read our new 'Weak signals from the future' column, where we suggest how today's trends could become tomorrow's phenomena.