Search for Space Some places don’t have enough land to farm. Take Singapore, for example. More than 5 million people live in this island nation. Skyscrapers crowd the skyline. T ere’s little room to grow food here. In fact, more than 90 percent of Singapore’s food is imported, or brought in, from other countries. For some farmers there, lack of land isn’t
a problem. T ey don’t need a lot of outdoor space. T at’s because they have found a way to grow food inside the tall buildings. It’s called vertical farming.
High-Rise Farming Vertical farming has many advantages. T e buildings protect plants from bad weather and pests. Farmers control the water, nutrients, and light each plant gets. T ey can grow everything from beets to broccoli this way. At one vertical farm, farmers stack trays of
plants in a frame. T e frame moves like a giant Ferris wheel. As it slowly spins, each plant gets equal light, flow of air, water, and nutrients. Gravity helps move the wheel, so it doesn’t
take much electricity to run. It doesn’t take up much space either. T e whole system is about the size of an average bathroom. T is farm holds 120 wheels, but farmers
hope to add 300 more. If it works, vertical farming could be a good food solution for places without a lot of farmland.
A 3-D printer printed this chocolate lollipop.
Printing Food A 3-D food printer takes up even less space. Printing food may sound like science fiction. It’s not. T ese printers already make foods like cookies and burritos. You can buy printed pancakes in the Netherlands. You can program and print 3-D chocolates in the shape of a friend’s face in Japan. T e printer works a lot like one that puts
words on a piece of paper. But instead of squirting out ink, a food printer squirts out mix of food powders and liquids. It mixes the ingredients, then prints them out layer by layer.
Feeding the World Over time, we’ve learned how to change the land to grow more food. Now, we’re growing towers of crops. Some day, meals will be printed at the push of a button. T ese old and new technologies will help us
keep up with a growing population. T ey’ll help feed our hungry planet.
WORDWISE
import: to bring something in from another place natural resource: something found in nature that is necessary or useful to people nutrient: a substance in food that a living thing needs to grow
14 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXTREME EXPLORER
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