Basic HTML Version
82
APRIL 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
RACHEL SWENIE (PLANTS)
buildinghousesanonprofithydroponic farmthatproducesgreens
and fish, as well as a number of food-related businesses—includ-
ing two breweries, a bakery and a for-profit farm—that provide
two equally important components: rent money that keeps the
nonprofit farm going even if its crops don’t sell, and waste.
The latter, in fact, is why these companies are here. Hand-
selected for what they leave behind, the Plant’s tenants all
produce refuse that can be used to feed fish, fertilize grow beds
or heat the building. Next year the facility will add a $3 million
digester, funded largely by state grants, that will convert nearly
all le overmaterial waste (as well as several tons fromarea food-
manufacturing companies) into biogas thatwill supply electricity
to the Plant and possibly enable it to
sell some back to the grid.
“We’ll beusing about 32 tons of food
waste every day,” says Edel. “We’re
also creating jobs, about 125, in an
economically distressed community
that’s seen terrible disinvestment.”
The Plant will also produce, well,
plants in a “food desert,” an urban
area bereft of grocery stores. And
because its crops can grow year
round without the hazards of bad
weather, insects or outside parasites,
Edel’s indoor organic farm is expected
toproduce approximately eight times
as much food per square foot as a
traditional farm, which it will sell
wholesale to area restaurants.
Edel is documenting his project
in hopes that it will be replicated
elsewhere. For something that
runs on waste, the Plant has one
very valuable byproduct, he says:
“Everyone wants to latch onto some
hope that they can have an effect on
global warming, food toxicity, obesity,
joblessness. We can provide that.”
—CHRISTINA COUCH
THE PROBLEM: THE METHANE
THAT COWS, ER, EMIT IS A MAJOR
GREENHOUSE GAS.
THE SOLUTION:
INVENT A
COW-FREE HAMBURGER
WITHOUT LOSING THE BEEF.
Growing meat in a dish isn’t a new idea,
but Dutch biologist Mark Post is bringing
it closer to reality. His first foray into synthesized meat was with
pork sausage; now, using stem cells from slaughterhouse meat, he’s
working on something with arguably wider appeal—a hamburger.
It’ll be a long time before you see man-made ground chuck in
stores, though. For one thing, the burger will cost about $345,000 to
produce. For another, people tend to be a li le iffy on the concept
of cultured meat (even if Post does figure out a way to make it look
less like ground scallops, as the current version of his burger does).
In an interviewwith the BBC, however, he offered this suggestion
for making it more appetizing: “It would be great if someone like
Jamie Oliver agreed to cook it for us.”
—JENNIFER NALEWICKI
THE PROBLEM
FARMING AND
CITIES HAVE
LONG BEEN
MUTUALLY
EXCLUSIVE.
THE SOLUTION:
TURN THE ONE
THING ALL CITIES HAVE A LOT
OF—WASTE—INTO SOMETHING
THEY CAN USE TO GROW FOOD.
“These are the babies,” John Edel says, point-
ing to tiny tilapia darting about in one of a
row of plastic fish tanks. “These are market-
size,” he says, turning to tank two. “And these,” he says, indicating
the huge fish in tank three, “are for something else.”
In an abandoned warehouse in a gritty neighborhood on
Chicago’s South Side, “something else” means waste: nitrite-
infusedwastewater, to be precise, whichwill feed plants innearby
growing beds. The plants will absorb the nutrients and produce
clean wastewater to be recycled back to their aquatic donors.
Turning one thing’s byproducts into another’s sustenance is how
Edel hopes to change the way Chicagoans get their food.
Edel’s project, thePlant, is an indoor farming setup that seeks to
solve economic, environmental andnutritional problems simulta-
neously. A formermeat-processing factory, the 93,500-square-foot
GREEN HOUSE
A test version of a rooftop gardening
system by Urban Canopy, one of the Plant’s tenants