The document discusses the vertical farm concept as a realistic and rational solution to challenges facing traditional farming. It provides 3 key benefits of vertical farms: 1) They allow food production in urban areas, reducing transportation costs and emissions. 2) They enable farming in previously inhospitable locations like deserts and space. 3) They improve food freshness, quality of life for citizens, and empower underserved communities.

1. V E R T I C A LV E R T I C A L F A R MF A R M SS –– T H ET H E R E A L I S T I CR E A L I S T I C R A T I O N A L ER A T I O N A L E
Since the dawn of mankind the need for the cultivation of plants has been borne both of necessity,
by providing food and also for aesthetics, by beautifying our environment.
Increasingly however, the environments in which we live and work are creating challenges and
obstacles for farmers, horticulturalists, gardeners and indeed anybody who has an interest in sewing
and growing healthy plants.
To this scenario the Vertical Farm adds a relatively simple but potentially revolutionary new
dimension.
We can no longer continuously consume finite acres of land area horizontally. Plantations need to
go upwards. By thinking vertically, literally the sky is the only limit (and maybe not even that).
In rural or semi-arid areas, global climate change (manifesting itself in droughts and flooding) and
insect plagues make it increasingly difficult for farming communities to successfully ensure the
survival of their crops. Additionally, the scarcity of suitable farming land imposes restrictions on what
and how much of a specific type of crop can be cultivated.
The Vertical Farm addresses these and many other problems.
In urban areas, citizens are almost totally reliant on the costly and polluting necessity to have fresh
produce shipped-in from facilities either at the perimeter of their city or town or transported from
hundreds and even thousands of kilometers away. This not only results in the production of massive
amounts of harmful greenhouse gasses but also contributes to rail and road traffic congestion.
There is no coincidence that as the price of oil skyrocketed in the period leading to the Global
Financial Crisis of 2008, so did the price of food – the two are inextricably intertwined. The advent of
the Vertical Farm, where each community can play a pert of producing its own food, can play an
important part in breaking this potentially disastrous coexistence.
SOYLENT GREEN. Metro Goldwyn Mayer 1973
As importantly, with produce being cultivated so far away from the end market, consumers are
presented with an end product that is nowhere near as fresh and nutritious as it could be.
The presence of solid but affordably built Vertical Farm within otherwise concrete-filled cityscapes
has the potential to radically improve quality of life for city dwellers.
In areas previously unsuited to farming, the verticils Vertical Farm has revolutionary potential. It
feasibly allows the production of fresh vegetables in the middle of the Sahara Desert, in a remote
mining town or next to an Antarctic research station and potentially, outside of earth’s atmosphere.

2. RURAL and ARID/SEMI-ARID ENVIRONMENTS
Whilst the Vertical Farm can probably never completely replace traditional ‘horizontal’ gardening it
opens exciting new frontiers as to how crops are planted and sustained.
Potential:
There are many communities that will benefit immensely from the innovation of the Vertical Farm.
Underdeveloped Nations:
For as long as humans have graced the earth there have been too many of us who have been
inadequately nourished. The fact that mankind has the intelligence to send our species to the moon
and yet accept famine on earth is unnecessary and must be addressed.
The verticils Vertical Farm will not cure this problem. The problem is one requiring a concerted
global effort and dedication. The structure however does have the ability to alleviate the problem
and to do so on a global basis. So many of the hungry live in areas where the soil quality is low or
there is insufficient rainfall or harsh climatic extremes that prevent sustainable cropping. These are
the issues that the verticils Vertical Farm can help address.
In a developed nation, the purchase and construction cost of the verticils Vertical Farm is financially
viable for many. Realistically however, very few impoverished villages or nations have the financial
means to purchase such a structure.
Benevolent institutions however may. Rather
than simply donating food to needy people it is
widely accepted as being far better to give
them the ability to reliably plant and grow their
own food; ideally becoming truly self-sufficient
and relatively immune to environmental and
economic extremes. Not only does donating
platforms to impoverished communities help
them become self-reliant, it encourages better
nutrition and inevitably improves the long-term
health standards of those communities.
The cost of basic and even fully optioned platforms is not beyond the means of many large
corporate or benevolent trusts or funds. Should they desire, wealthier individuals, conscientious
groups and socially-aware institutions and bodies may choose to donate one or many platforms to
specific communities they see fit.
Mining Communities:
In many cases, the earths’ mineral resources are located in inhospitable environments; be that the
semi-arid Australian outback, or the chilly Canadian tundra. This makes the production of fresh fruit,
herbs and vegetables practically impossible. As a result and at great cost, such produce needs to be
trucked or even airfreighted in and the quality and freshness of the food is often wanting.
New Locations Previously Inhospitable To Farming:
See Below.
URBAN ENVIRONMENT
In 2009 for the first time, the number of people living in cities exceeded those living in rural areas.
This increased urbanization has created many challenges to citizens, governments and urban
planners.
Not the least of these challenges is how to feed the inhabitants of these cities.

3. Invariably, fresh produce needs to be grown many miles away from the eventual point of
consumption. Such a concept is inefficient and environmentally damaging. As ludicrous as it is to
ship plastic bottles of drinking water halfway around the world when fresh water is often freely
available from our taps, so too does it not make sense to harvest vegetable products so far away
from the point of consumption.
Economics:
From an economic cost/benefit standpoint there is clearly a point beyond which the financial cost of
transporting consumables great distances and the social and economic harm caused by this
transport becomes unviable. To date however, a purely financial analysis would probably determine
that this point has not been reached for all but the most geographically huge cities. The cost of
producing vegetables outside of the city and transporting them inwards has been less than the cost
of a small inner-urban block and the construction of a Vertical Farm. As cities grow however this is
increasingly no longer the case.
The intangible financial cost is of course, the
damage caused by the ever-increasing
amount of road and rail traffic needed to
sustain the supply of fresh food for a growing
urban population. This includes the traffic
jams that each day delay people in all
industries globally and the road accidents that
cost our communities countless millions of
dollars and create so much avoidable human
grief.
The verticils Vertical Farm won’t solve these problems but it will certainly help.
Social:
Then there is the non-financial cost of transporting these products - the carbon emissions
contributing to global climate change and the noise and physical intrusion of the millions of trucks
and trains needed to keep us supplied with food.
Naturally, as the cost of transporting fresh produce greater and greater distances and the need to
store and refrigerate this produce in an attempt to retain freshness has increased, so has the end
cost to the consumer. So much so that many city dwellers simply will not spend the money on
nutritious fresh fruit and vegetables and are increasingly turning to relatively cheap, highly-
processed, long shelf-life but low nutrition foodstuffs. The byproduct of this is the shocking increase
in obesity of the urban population.
Whilst not the sole answer to these problems, the verticils Vertical Farm can help make fresh fruit
and vegetables available to people who have increasingly not had the luxury of eating a fresh pea,
carrot or bean.
Community:
Finally there is the community cost of being removed from nature.
In our sprawling concrete jungles we have become isolated from nature and with that isolation there
has come a myriad of associated social and community problems. Allowing citizens to actively
engage in the process of planting, tending and harvesting the food that they ultimately consume can
only have an empowering effect on them and add to their sense of self-esteem and self-reliance.
Such enhanced self-reliance can only serve to lessen the burden on the community as a whole.
The potential community and urban uses for the verticils Vertical Farm are only as limited as the
imagination – here are just a few.

4. Potential:
The land-value of absolute prime central business district real estate in major cities will almost
always preclude the construction of permanent high-rise vertical gardens. At this stage the financial
returns reaped by producing vegetable products do not warrant the expense required in building a
traditional high-rise CBD tower as a vertical farm. There is more money to be made from using that
property for commercial, residential or limited industrial buildings.
Many current concepts for high-rise vertical
farms have as their basis, converted or
specifically designed high-rise buildings.
Realistically however it is probable that
current and future land values will almost
always limit the viability of such structures.
It is however at the periphery of the city that
the picture changes; the point on the graph at
which the land value line drops and intersects
the line depicting the value to the consumer of
purchasing fresh local produce.
Correspondingly, we believe the key to
maximizing the viability of vertical farms is to
minimize the cost of their production and
acquisition. This is done by mass modular
construction and ease of construction.
To address multiple uses and users, the verticils Vertical Farm has been designed to be portable
and easily assembled. There is however absolutely nothing to prevent the structure from becoming
a permanent feature and indeed we believe many governments, councils, corporations and
communities will elect to use it for exactly this purpose. The verticils Vertical Farm can be a
permanent construction used however the owners see fit.
Local Council/Government:
From a community standpoint, a local council may wish to provide any number of verticils Vertical
Farms to benefit the following groups;
Community Groups:
Economically disadvantaged, single-parent families, outreach groups and ethnic minorities are all
groups who can be terrifically empowered by the verticils Vertical Farm. For example, in many of
the worlds’ largest cities we have seen the rise of disenfranchised and disaffected ethnic minorities.
In many cases they have escaped oppression in their homelands only to face social isolation and a
reliance on government handouts in their new countries.
Charitable organizations spend a great deal of energy and money in attempting to engender a
greater sense of purpose amongst these minorities and one tangible way for this situation to be
improved is to involve citizens in the production of their own food. For example, it would be very
empowering for say a Vietnamese refugee in a crowded Parisian housing estate to be able to
prepare Mi Quáng with truly appropriate herbs and vegetables.
Similarly, victims of domestic violence or recovering addicts are often simply housed in community
accommodation in high-density residential areas but are given no or very limited extra support. The
ensuing idle hours and boredom can often lead them to returning to the source of their difficulties
and thus finding themselves back in the same unsatisfactory situation they tried to escape. By giving
them a degree of purpose in life (the ability to provide fresh food for themselves and possibly their
families) may serve to at least partially assist in their recovery process.
Public-Housing Residents:
In many cities worldwide, residents of public housing projects are forced to live in massive
complexes devoid of any character and real sense of community. What space there is surrounding
such housing projects is often a barren, dimly lit wasteland. Not only will the addition of a verticils

5. Vertical Farm serve to add character to the landscape, it would add a vital missing element to the
often tedious existence of local residents.
For possibly the first time, they would have the ability to interact with nature, to immerse their hands
in fresh earth and grow their own fruit and vegetables or flowers. By creating a focal point, the
garden should also serve to engender far more of a community spirit than was ever the case.
Public Use:
Most cities suffer a dearth of decent public
space, with vacant land having years ago been
built-on with offices and retail outlets. The benefit
of the verticils Vertical Farm is that it truly is
vertical! Consequently, with just a small surface
area of land, city councils can provide new green
spaces for use by everybody. Literally there
could be mini-parks where nobody previously
would have conceived these could exist. Some
areas of these Vertical Gardens might be set
aside for aromatic flower growing whilst others
might house smoking and no-smoking areas set
conveniently apart to keep everybody happy.
Corporations:
Individual corporations may chose to construct a verticils Vertical Farm for use by their employees.
Elements of the Farm may be utilized to grow fresh salad items for use in the company canteen,
whilst on other levels fresh flowers may be grown for eventual use throughout the corporate offices.
Further area may be used as seating areas amongst the greenery to be enjoyed by employees
during breaks.
Larger corporations could easily donate a verticils Vertical Farm to their local community or indeed
any community globally should they so wish.
Retailers:
Convenience Stores: So many convenience stores seem to offer saggy, sad herbs or vegetables for
sale at exorbitant prices. A very affordable alternative would see the local convenience store owning
or renting an area within the verticils Vertical Farm in order to grow fresh produce. This is an
affordable option for the proprietor and a welcome alternative for the customer.
Restaurants: Particularly in large cities it is becoming increasingly difficult for chefs to access a
reliable supply of fresh and healthy produce. Both from a realistic service standpoint and as an
impressive marketing approach, the availability of on or near-site homegrown herbs and vegetables
is a significant competitive advantage.
Boutique coffee outlets: Obviously not feasible on a major scale but it is undeniably impressive for
an inner city local coffee outlet to be able to market home-grown coffee beans.
These are just a few of the possibilities for our product and we’re always open to suggestions and
new ideas.
NEW LOCATIONS PREVIOUSLY INHOSPITABLE TO FARMING
Many communities across the globe are situated in locations where it is virtually impossible to create
or sustain vegetation. This may be as a result of insufficient water supply required to support the
vegetation or possibly as the result temperature extremes that make the survival of plants
impossible.
To a degree this can be addressed by traditional structures such as hothouses however these
solutions usually require a significant amount of surface area to produce sufficient quantity. Because
of the massive surface area inherent in existing hothouse structures, they are both inefficient from a
temperature-control standpoint and often severely damaged by storms or hail, with the resultant loss

6. of crops and significant rectification expense. Additionally, thousands of towns and villages
worldwide are located in mountainous or undulating environments in which it is simply impossible to
construct hothouse type structures.
By utilizing a vertical garden with its minimal land-usage and thus reduced surface area exposed to
phenomena such as damaging storms, the difficulties associated with traditional indoor growing
environments are largely addressed.
Perhaps the single-most exciting illustration of the potential of the verticils Vertical Farm is in the
following locations, where to date, either no or extremely limited cultivation of vegetation was
possible.
Desert:
Affluent Desert Countries:
The past decades have seen the phenomenal growth of dynamic and cosmopolitan towns and
cities, particularly in the Middle East, where before there was just inhospitable desert.
Until the advent of the verticils Vertical Farm, these communities have been almost entirely reliant
on the importation of fresh consumables.
Now however, vertical farming oases are a feasible and practical alternative. Located on the
outskirts of such cities as Dubai or Abu Dhabi, it is a simple process to harvest freshly grown herbs
or vegetables directly to markets and consumers, potentially used within hours or even minutes of
harvesting.
Arctic Climates:
The same principles applying to desert environments also apply to arctic locations. With external
cladding and insulation, the natural hothouse ecosystem allows for the production of vegetable
products where this had been previously impossible.
Space:
A simple derivation of the technologies used on earth in the verticils Vertical Farm allows
adaptation for use on space vehicles. With increasing periods of time (often more than one year)
spent orbiting the earth in the International Space Station, astronauts need freshly grown produce.
NASA astronauts Scott Kelly (right) and Kjell Lindgren (center) with Kimiya Yui of JAXA snack on freshly
Harvested space-grown red romaine lettuce as part of the Veggie experiment.
Credit: NASA TV via collectSPACE.com
With innovative concepts such as the Bigelow Aerospace B330 modular and expandable space
habitat, combined with aeroponic and aquaponic technologies and crop-specific artificial lighting,
there really is no limit to the production space available for healthy fruit and vegetables.

7. We hope you agree that the above information has not only detailed the very real benefits of the
Vertical Farm concept but more specifically illustrated that the verticils Vertical Farm is the right
solution at the right time.
Once patent issues are addressed and the finer details of the design finessed, we will release
further images and documentation detailing the specifics of the building and the innovations it
contains.
We are aware that cost minimization is a vital element in ensuring the economic viability of a vertical
farm in today’s economy. There is vast further development potential for our concepts and we plan
to unveil these ideas as the environmental and economic costs associated with current horizontal
farming make these viable.
It’s our sincerest wish that the principles comprising the verticils Vertical Farm will contribute in
some small way to the improvement in the quality of life for humans for decades to come.
verticils