As someone who designed and operated a hydroponic greenhouse operation for years after obtaining an advanced degree in engineering, I have looked many times at similar technologies to those espoused in this article. The concept invoked here is very misguided, at best.

Technology-intensive agriculture always comes back to one indisputable fact: Sunlight is a very rich resource that is far too expensive to simulate. So, in fact, is farmland. Imagine the cost of a 25 floor building with a one acre footprint. How many 25 acre farms would it buy? The cost of transport will never exceed the operating costs of the building, which will only ever collect a fraction of the sunlight falling on the 25 acre farm.

Sorry, been there, done that. People have looked at these ideas for decades, and there are solid reasons why there are no economical examples. Epcot? Puleeeeze!

Misguided at best and if presented as a business model - fraudlent more than likely.

The cost of the high rise is prohibitive to start. The list of claims made is beyond belief. Mostly applicable to green houses or normal farms and in some cases just plain wrong.

Claims like these are one reason many look at the green front as being foolish to the extreme.

I wonder what this guy is a professir of - maybe the comic strips?

This is one of the most ridiculous fads I have seen in the media lately. Do you realize that there is so much land in this world that is used for farming. Why do city folks think that there is no room left? In the US so many of our states are nothing but farming. Kansas's land is 95% farm land. Why would anyone try to squeeze all that into a skyscraper shaped building. There is no way a skinny little building is going to make enough food to merit the infrastructure and displacement it it takes to build that structure. I'd hate for my vegetables to be vandalized with grafiti and tainted by dirty water from NYC. 40% of the US's land is used for farm land. The average farm is 418 acres. You will never be able to squeeze all that into a man made structure. http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm

Please let's stop the hype behind this topic. Its just some far fetched idea that isn't going to be profitable, so it will never happen.

Is this a joke?

Skyscrapers are $1000/sqft with sunlight only on one side, and farmland is $1000/acre fully lit. Whoever thought this up has never stepped outside NYC.