The high-rise farm is the brainchild of one Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University. Despommier has spent a decade or so developing "vertical farming," in essence an urban tower to feed city dwellers.
Now, a press release went around recently and here’s what it said:
"Las Vegas, the tourist mecca of the world, is set to begin development of the world’s first vertical farm. The $200 million project is designed to be a functional and profitable working farm growing enough food to feed 72,000 people for a year and provide another tourist attraction to the city that does everything in a larger than life way.
"The world currently uses about 80% of the available farm land and 60% of the earth’s population lives near or in an urban environment. So the logical choice for farming is to go up for land where the environment can be controlled and where distribution is local.
"Las Vegas is seen as the perfect location for this project by Nevada State officials who would like to demonstrate their sustainability and environmental awareness instead of projecting an image of waste and excess.
"Although the project initial cost is high at $200 million, with annual revenue of $25 million from produce and another $15 million from tourists, the 30-story vertical farm would be about as profitable as a casino with operating expenses only being about $6 million a year.
"There would be about 100 different crops grown, ranging from strawberries to lettuce, and even miniature banana trees could be grown from each floor’s specially controlled environment. The products would go straight to the casinos and hotel properties and be a very visible and desirable addition to the overall Las Vegas experience. Design details should be worked out in 2008 and the project could open its doors by the middle of 2010."
All fine and dandy (except for the atrocious writing), right? There's only one problem. Though the vertical-farm idea is real, the Las Vegas part of it isn't.
Alexandra Berzon, a Las Vegas Sun business writer/blogger looked a little more deeply into the press release and found, "The so-called 'fact' that Las Vegas is building a giant skyscraper that will feed 72,000 people in the city –- and serve as a tourist attraction -- has been floating around for about a week now on 'green business' web sites, Las Vegas building sites, and, of course, Wikipedia. Most of the reports reference a story in something called Next Energy News that cites ‘Nevada state officials’ as saying that Las Vegas is building the $200 million 30-story building, the world’s first skyscraper farm.
"Web sites that 'report' the building of the vertical farm in Las Vegas don't mention Despommier by name, but include renderings and language lifted straight out of his vertical farm web site. Problem is ... Despommier doesn't know anything about Las Vegas plans.
"'I have absolutely nothing to do with it,' said Despommier, in an email. 'My own opinion is that it's just a hoax.'"
Corroboration that the Las Vegas part of the vertical farm is a hoax comes from a comment about Berzon’s blog (which you can see for yourself at lasvegassun.com/blogs/gaming/2008/jan/10/vegas-building-rumor-watch-skyscraper-farm) from one Chris Jacobs, who writes:
"The renderings that all these ‘Las Vegas Vertical Farm’ articles are using are my designs. To see them, go to www.chrisjacobs.com. I’ve been working with Dr. Despommier for well over 2 years now -- it’s very interesting that this ‘Las Vegas Vertical Farm" story printed all over use our designs from www.verticalfarm.com site and say 30 stories ... which is straight from the first major article written about the vertical farm in New York Magazine. I let Dr. Dickson know about this today ... asking him if he’s heard of it ... and he told me he had never heard of this Las Vegas venture."
Not that it's a bad idea for Vegas; here's a thumbnail of the concept from Dr. Despommier'
