17 Surprising Benefits of Urban Farming / Rooftop Farming

Did you know that over 20% of the food in the world is produced by urban farms? If this number sounds INSANELY high. That's because well ... it is. How did urban farming pick up so much steam, so fast? How is it possible the commercial vertical farming market is expected to grow over 380% by 2022? If these stats convince you urban farming is a good idea, great. If you're not convinced...If you're still asking yourself: Why should I learn more about urban farming?? 

The answer is simple.

There are incredible amount of advantage urban farmers have over conventional agriculture. Curious to know about the many benefits of urban farming?

Read on...

1. Learn a very rare skill ... the ability to farm

According to the United States Farm Bureau, only 1 in 50 American citizens have any farming experience (2%). That means the average person on the street is far more likely to have other interesting skills like speaking a foreign language (over 15% of Americans are bilingual, and over 50% of Europeans are). By learning urban farming, you are developing a very unique skill.

2. Conserve Space

Urban farming utilizes space incredibly efficiently. This is especially true in the case of vertical farming. For example, Vertical Harvest, one of the largest commercial vertical farms in the US, grows the same amount of produce on 1/10 of an acre that traditional agriculture would need 5 acres to produce.

3. Extremely healthy food source

The output of most urban farms are vegetables, typically loose-leaf lettuces, herbs, or brassicas. According to Choosemyplate.gov, health benefits of produce are almost unbeatable, including:

1.     vegetables do not have cholesterol

2.     vegetables are high in fiber

3.     vegetables are sources of many nutrients including: potassium, folate, Vitamin A & Vitamin C.

4. Helps Prevent Food Insecurity

According to the USDA, 1 in 7 Americans suffers from food insecurity, and this figure includes over 6 million children. Urban farming can help alleviate some of the pressures of food insecurity. For example, urban farms set up in food deserts can be a source of nutritious food for nearby urban residents.

 

5. Easier to eat organic produce

According to helpguide.org, organic produce:

-        contains less pesticides than conventional

-        contain less fertilizer than conventional

-        are more fresh than conventional

Growing in your own home in some ways is the most organic way to grow - in some urban farming set ups you may need almost no pesticides or fertilizer, and the produce could not be fresher.

6. Less Greenhouse Gas Emissions

According to ACS.org, "Some analysts have suggested that bringing agriculture into cities has lowered food-related greenhouse gas emissions". That being said, the same study linked above *does* emphasize that the greenhouse gas emission savings provided by urban farming are often overestimated, especially in high density urban farming areas in the Northeastern United States (New York, Boston, etc).

7. Cheaper Than Buying Produce from Normal Supply Chain

On a common sense level, putting in the time to grow your own fresh fruits and vegetables is going to have a cheaper unit cost than going to buy at the grocery store. The reason for this is simple: 
Grocery store produce is heavily marked up. According to the article from Chron, grocery stores mark up the cost of their produce by up to 75%, that's almost a 2x increase that you pay.
Beyond that, a lot of the original cost of the produce comes from transportation. The result? Growing yourself is way cheaper on average.

8. Decreases "Food Miles" (Even compared to "local produce")

Food miles are defined as the distance from where your food is grown or produced to where you eat it. Food miles for local produce that is produced from an urban garden or farm can be less than .001% the distance that grocery store (and even restaurant) produce travels from "farm to fork". Think about it this way, if you're growing in your own home, we're not even talking about food "miles" anymore, we're talking about food "feet"! 

9. Improves State of Mind

According to a Psychology Today article titled "Plants Make You Feel Better", presence of plants indoors or in your garden:

-        Lowers systolic blood pressure

-        Lowers levels of anxiety

-        Increases job satisfaction

So...if you hate your job...you need to start urban farming! 

10. Less Packaging Required

If you are harvesting your food from an urban farm, you may be able to completely do away with packaging. Why is this a HUGE benefit?

Packaging is one of the most harmful environmental pollutants that exist in the planet. According to this article on Livestrong, titled "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Food Packaging", while packaging has benefits like increasing shelf-life, there are also huge disadvantages: 

"According to Duke University researchers Patrick Reaves and Michael Nolan, consumer packaging accounts for the largest amount of plastic and paper waste, which forms 20 % of all landfills"

Urban Farming = packaging not necessary = benefit.

11. High Food Safety

Large scale outbreaks of salmonella or other contaminants is largely a bi-product of the overwhelming distance and processing food undergoes. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Foodborne illnesses are usually infectious or toxic in nature and caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances entering the body through contaminated food or water". With increasing supply chain length comes higher risk of contamination.

12. Higher Food Quality

When urban farming, you have ultimate control over things like:

-        growing conditions

-        harvesting time

-        light exposure

When you go to the grocery store, it's a "take it or leave it" situation that you have very little control over. If you really want a carrot but all the carrots are heavily bruised, you either buy a bruised carrot or don't get any carrot.

13. Less Food Waste

Because you can "harvest and eat" with urban farming, there is no disconnect between your produce supply and the amount you eat. The majority of food waste at the consumer level occurs because produce that is already purchased goes bad. If you only harvest what you are about to eat, you will waste far less.

14. Water Conservation

Many styles of growing that are popular in urban agriculture are far more efficient with water than general agriculture. For example, according to Lucky Roots, hydroponic systems can use 2/3 less water than what would normally be needed for the same amount of output.

15. Air Purification and Breathing Benefits

Based off data from this article on Bayeradvanced.com, titled "The 5 Benefits of House Plants", having any type of plant in your house will aid in air purification. In fact, this phenomenon has been studied so deeply that we know certain types of plants purify air better than others.

16. May Increase Your Focus

According to an article from Scientific American titled "Houseplants Make You Smarter", large sets of data show that plants increase focus and attention span.

The reasoning?

Humans evolved in settings with far more plants than the computer screens most people are glued to in today's day and age. While too much screen exposure is typically harmful for attention span and focus capacity over, presence of plants results in the opposite effects. Listen up kids, if you didn't do so well on that last test, you may need to do a little urban farming!

17. Prevent Illness

According to a recent article from Treehugger, the presence of plants in your house or garden does play a role in preventing onset of illness. This does not take into account the fact that simply eating more produce is proven to prevent illness in multiple studies.

Conclusion

If you got to the end of this article, you probably liked something about it. If you liked something about this video... you will probably like something about our other videos. To access our other videos, visit www.greensmithnepal.blogspot.com or sign up for our email list below or in the sidebar! 

Also, if you haven't gotten enough benefits of urban farming, check out more helpful resources in the section below.