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A comment on ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system. Parent comment

Re:ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system by wallacoloo on Sunday March 29, 2020 @06:10PM (#22723235)
> As far as the urban agriculture crowd goes, they're concerned about the length of their logistics lines to their tables. Raspberries grown half a mile down the street in winter is better for the environment than flying them in from another hemisphere.

Aside from environmental effects, it’s also just a more secure logistics chain. A person needs water, food, and shelter to survive. Sometimes it feels strange to me that the trend of the past centuries has been to increase the distance between a person and those sources β€” to introduce more points of failure between you and the things you need in order to survive.

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Re:ZipGrow: Vertical farming/urban agriculture system by fyfy18 on Monday March 30, 2020 @12:52AM (#22725347)
Another commenter mentioned it's more energy efficient to grow tomatoes in Spain - where less heat is needed - and fly them to the UK. That may be true, but an even better way is to just grow crops that are suitable for that season.

In the UK you can grow crops all year round outdoors [0], and the growing seasons could easily be extended with a passive greenhouse (polycarbonate is more insulating than glass). You can also use tried and tested preservation techniques like canning and fermenting to keep food for other seasons.

[0] https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/vegetables-all-year-round

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