Recently, scientists from the Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IUA-CAAS), have highlighted the potential role of skyscraper crop factory (SCF), an efficient crop-production system, to meet the rising urban food demand. The research entitled "The Skyscraper Crop Factory: A Potential Crop-Production System to Meet Rising Urban Food Demand" has been published in Engineering (IF: 12.8).

Due to rapid urbanization, more than 67% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050, with a total global population of 9.7 billion. Due to the conflict between the growing population and the lack of agricultural resources in urban and peri-urban areas, traditional crop production and supply chains are facing previously unheard-of difficulties. By disrupting global food-supply chains and severely impeding the flow of food in global markets, the coronavirus pandemic has further aggravated food security issues. Therefore, effective crop-production systems should be developed for urban areas to meet the growing food demand.

SCF is efficient crop production system that aims to increase the effective arable land for crops by building a high-rise structure with multiple levels on the same land footprint to continuously provide safe, nutritious, sustainable, and sufficient food. With the application of plant factory and green, sustainable, and energy-conserving technologies, SCFs can enable the year-round, highly efficient, and environmentally friendly cultivation of crops. The production capacity can reach more than 1,000 times that of open field. SCF provides a new and effective way to significantly increase food production capacity and improve the resilience of urban food supplies, as well as a sustainable addition to conventional agricultural crop production.

This study was financially supported by Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of CAAS and the National Key Research and Development Program.

The link of the paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2023.08.014

By Zhang, Li (zhangli10@caas.cn)