Vertical Farming at The Plant: How a Former Meat-Packing Facility [on Chicago's south side] Became a Successful Farm

There’s a heated debate among proponents of urban agriculture about whether vertical farming is truly feasible. Most people agree that it would solve many of our current agricultural problems, such as land and water use, heavy reliance on chemical inputs, fertilizer runoff and soil erosion, and carbon emissions from transportation.

However, real estate is expensive in cities. And no one has yet figured out a way to get sunlight into a skyscraper so that the plants grow evenly.

But innovators like as John Edel, owner and developer of the Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center, appear have found solution. Edel built a mini-vertical farm, called The Plant, in a former meat-packing facility complete with an aquaponics farm and a food business incubator that offers low rent, low energy costs, and a licensed shared kitchen.

Located in the economically distressed Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, the Plant was relatively cheap to buy. That solved the property cost problem. As for the issue of evenly-dispersed sunlight, The Plant utilizes indoor grow lights that are operated as part of an off-grid net-zero energy system, run by an anaerobic digester and a combined heat and power system. The digester consumes food waste produced in the facility and by neighboring manufacturers, meeting the energy needs of the entire building. So not only does The Plant produce net-zero energy, but it also produces net-negative waste by turning those waste products into energy.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/10/31/356959/vertical-farming-the-plant/