Creative Solutions For The Hungry World of Tomorrow

BY LUKE FATER, GASTRO OBSCURA FELLOW

The United Nations estimates that Earth’s human population will jump from today’s 7.6 billion to 9.8 billion by 2050. That’s 2 billion more mouths to feed, on the same planet that has lost a third of its arable land in the last 40 years. In other words, we’re going to need a lot more food produced in a much different way if our whole human experiment is to have a future. Nothing seems to inspire creativity like the looming threat of starvation.

Enter the farms of tomorrow. With smaller footprints and more efficient use of light, air, and soil, these concepts can also operate far closer to exploding urban centers (68 percent of us are forecasted to live in cities by the same 2050 mark, up from today’s 55 percent) than traditional farms, drastically reducing transportation emissions. To mitigate the perilous effects of climate change, we must reverse thousands of years of human evolution by farming like we’ve never farmed before.

This means converting forgotten spaces such as World War II bomb shelters or subterranean caves into food-productive spaces. This means employing cutting-edge technology by building greenhouses out of giant bubbles, or indoor vertical farms grown under artificial lights. This means a floating home where cows and robots produce fresh yogurt.

Whatever it means, the existence of these unexpected, innovative farms gives us a taste of the future. They give us a taste of hope.

1. LONDON, ENGLAND

Growing Underground

A former World War II bomb shelter is living its second life as the world's first underground farm.

2. BANGKOK, THAILAND

Haoma

Rather than farm-to-table, this upscale Bangkok restaurant puts the table in the farm: Aquaponic and vertical farms within the restaurant itself supply the produce for much of the neo-Indian menu.

3. ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

Floating Farm

This floating farm in the port of Rotterdam is the first of its kind, with 35 cows producing hundreds of liters of milk every day to be distributed throughout the city.

4. NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Farm.One

Despite being a farm beneath the streets of New York City, this is one place you won't get your hands dirty: The hydroponic farm uses no soil or pesticides.

5. BOURRÉ, FRANCE

La Cave des Roches (Mushroom Caves)

Just outside the French city of Tours, a vast, forgotten network of limestone mines is now a spelunking mycophile's dream come true.

6 CORNWALL, ENGLAND

The Eden Project

At the site of a former clay mine, the world's largest greenhouse was erected, hosting a tropical and Mediterranean biome where plants native to each climate thrive.