Hello from the studios at Pascual Bravo University. Are floating farms the future of agriculture? Imagine a food production facility which can supply fresh food directly to a city without requiring the use of any land. That is exactly what a Barcelona design firm, Forward Thinking Architecture, is undertaking: a two-million-square-foot barge that would float on the open sea, and that would yield eight tons of vegetables and fruit and two tons of fish each year. The idea is that the floating farm
will operate autonomously as it floats on the open sea. The Smart Floating Farm is a large, triple-decker agriculture barge that features fish farms down below, hydroponic gardens up top and solar panels on the roof to keep things running. The concept of a floating farm checks the boxes of all the current buzzwords: preservation of arable land, local organic food sourcing with less “food mileage,” environmental protection, self-sufficiency, sustainability. What the designers have in mind is a r
ectangular farm with a default size of about 2.2 million square feet. Since the floating farms would be modular, several farms could be clustered together to improve their capacity to serve highly dense populated areas. The modules would then be connected by a series of walkways and catwalks. The bottom level would contain fish farms, water access points, storage, a slaughterhouse, a desalination plant and a packaging facility. Upstairs would be a greenhouse with automated hydroponics, and micro
climate control for crop cultivation. The rooftop level would hold a photovoltaic power plant and feature skylights to deliver natural light to the plants. Wind turbines and wave energy converter systems would also play a role, as would biogas power plants that would be used to eliminate the biological waste produced throughout the operation. The most important component would be the hydroponic garden, because they don’t require natural precipitation, fertile land or pesticides to be effective,
and they can also be stacked, so they take up less space. The designers contend that all of this could operate pretty much automatically, with minimal human intervention. The key would be to place sensors everywhere on the floating farm and rely on “Big Data” analytics to help the farm run at peak efficiency and at the same time determine supply and demand needs for the local population. Say, fewer fish and more lettuce perhaps? I am Gary Vernier and this has been a Pascual Bravo English documen
tary. Until next time, good luck with English.
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