Urban Farms Prove to Yield Far More Than Crops

Using a mix of data and geographic computer vision, researchers have been able to estimate the effects that large scale urban farming that go far beyond the food grown. A research team used google maps imagery to determine that globally implemented urban farming could produce as 180 million metric tons of food per year. What’s more, they suggest that the benefits of these farms could reach far beyond feeding the world’s rapidly growing cities. Sustainability experts refer to these extra benefits as “ecosystem services” and research suggests they could add up to $160 billion in value to urban farming across the globe. These benefits include heat island control, stormwater control, and nitrogen sequestration. Finally, these researchers have made their computer vision work public so that, as interest in urban farming scales, city planners can use it to identity spaces ideal for usage as an urban farm. This gives planners another tool to use when trying to decide if a vacant lot should be made into a park, a farm, or as more and more often the case, a combination of the two.

Crawford, A. (2018, February 16). Big Data Suggests Big Potential for Urban Farming. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from https://www.wired.com/story/big-data-suggests-big-potential-for-urban-farming/.