Could urban farming feed the world?

<p>From back gardens to hi-tech hydroponics, the future of food doesn’t have to be rural</p><p>In 1982, artist Agnes Denes planted 2.2&nbsp;acres of wheat on waste ground in New York’s Battery Park, near the recently completed World Trade Center. The towers soared over a golden field, as if dropped into Andrew Wyeth’s bucolic painting Christina’s World. Denes’s Wheatfield: A Confrontation<em> </em>was a challenge to what she called a “powerful paradox”: the absurdity of hunger in a wealthy world.</p><p>The global population in 1982 was 4.6 billion. By 2050, it will be more than double that, and the prospect of feeding everyone looks uncertain. Food insecurity already affects <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/24-07-2024-hunger-numbers-stubbornly-high-for-three-consecutive-years-as-global-crises-deepen--un-report">2.3 billion people</a>. Covid-19 and extreme weather have revealed the fragility of the food system. Denes was called a prophet for drawing attention to ecological breakdown decades before widespread public awareness. But perhaps she was prophetic, too, in foreseeing how we would feed ourselves. By 2050, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization">more than two-thirds</a> of us will live in cities. Could urban farming feed 10 billion?</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/09/could-urban-farming-feed-the-world">Continue reading...</a>