Following on from my last post… I’m still in awe of this idea. There’s been some amazing stuff recently about skyscraper farming, a notion I’m mildly in love with just because it’s so future-ish in the way the future ought to be but sadly isn’t – but the mobile farm is, as far as I know, a concept unique to my deranged reading of the BBC news page this morning.

Hang on, web search… Hm.  Yes. Aside from some rather sweet agricultural outreach programmes, I’m not getting any hits. No one’s really thinking about this. And indeed, there’s no reason why they would – it’s a solution without a problem.  The skyscraper farm is all about the world food problem we’re getting ourselves into:

by the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices.

The Mobile Farm addresses no such issue. But imagine it… a great, rolling, many-wheeled crab supporting fields and houses and cattle and people, trundling benignly through untouched valleys and along wide, earthen roads. Never stopping. A slice of agricultural life (my personal favourite would be an olive farm/vinyard forever traveling the Tuscan plains, but that’s just me) which didn’t despoil the landscape, which could visit the city to sell produce, meet other farms to exchange goods and mingle populations…

Yeah, I know, it’s nuts. But still. Mobile Farms, roaming the planet. What a way to live.