“Urban Farming Is Going High Tech”

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: How do traditional forms of urban agriculture and the newer digital urban agriculture converge and diverge from one another in terms of land use and gentrification? I interrogate the subject of digital urban agriculture with data from 82 semistructured interviews and notes taken during public forms and tours of facilities. Respondents were located in Denver (CO; n = 30), New York (NY; n = 26), and San Francisco (CA; n = 26) and held positions ranging from community organizers, investors, local food powerbrokers, and planners to engineers involved in facilitating urban foodways based on vertical farming, automation, and related technologies. I find digital platforms—systems exhibiting characteristics including real-time surveillance, artificial intelligence, and automation—share similarities with traditional urban farming systems. Both platforms have the potential to disrupt dominant political economies and also have links to gentrification and other inequitable land use patterns. Potential divergences include differences in a) social, cultural, economic, human, and built capital barriers and outcomes; b) land use life course; and c) zoning.

Takeaway for practice: Digital urban farming systems inhabit a regulatory gray area; respondents encountered agricultural, industrial, or commercial zoning permits. The “digital” aspects of these systems contributed to this ambiguity and are used by powerbrokers to obtain further zoning permission than is possible with traditional urban agriculture. Compared with more traditional urban farming systems, digital urban agriculture taps into different forms of human capital. Finally, my findings are inconclusive on the issue of land use life course. Some data indicate digital farms will remain in urban cores, whereas other evidence points to the eventual migration of these platforms to the metropolitan periphery.

Keywords:

• digital agriculture
• equity
• food justice
• food systems planning
• vertical farming

Acknowledgments

This article benefited tremendously from reviewers’ comments and from the thoughtfulness and patience of the journal’s editor, Dr. Ann Forsyth.

RESEARCH SUPPORT

This research was supported in part by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016S1A3A2924243), the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA-COL00725), and the Office for the Vice President for Research, College of Liberal Arts, and Office of Engagement at Colorado State University.

Notes

Notes

1 These findings align with economic surveys of UA more generally. Dimitri and colleagues (2016) provide the most comprehensive, peer-reviewed national study of UA operations that includes financial information. In total, 370 farmers responded to their 2015 survey, with 315 self-reporting operating an urban or peri-urban farm, 89 operating a community garden, and 34 operating both an urban farm and community garden. Only 28% of the respondents reported that the primary farmer earns a living from the farm.

2 Lending Tree (a well-known online lending exchange) released a report in January 2019 based on 1.5 million homebuyers (Kapfidze, 2019). Denver was identified as the most competitive housing market in the nation. San Francisco came in fourth place and New York in 15th place. These cities were therefore already primed for a growing rent gap. The Lending Tree study ranked Birmingham (AL), Virginia Beach (VA), and Pittsburgh (PA) as least competitive.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Carolan

MICHAEL CAROLAN ([email protected]) is a professor of sociology and the associate dean for research and graduate affairs at Colorado State University, Fort Collins.