{"id":7124,"date":"2025-02-18T23:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/dickson-despommier-who-championed-farming-in-skyscrapers-dies-at-84\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T23:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T23:27:11","slug":"dickson-despommier-who-championed-farming-in-skyscrapers-dies-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/dickson-despommier-who-championed-farming-in-skyscrapers-dies-at-84\/","title":{"rendered":"Dickson Despommier, Who Championed Farming in Skyscrapers, Dies at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dickson Despommier, a microbiologist who proposed that cities should grow food in high-rises, popularizing the term \u201cvertical farming\u201d \u2014 an idea that crossed over from the realm of the purely fanciful to become a reality around the globe \u2014 died on Feb. 7 in Manhattan. He was 84.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His wife, Marlene Bloom, confirmed the death, in a hospital. He lived in Fort Lee, N.J.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Despommier (pronounced des-POM-ee-yay), who was a professor for 38 years at Columbia\u2019s School of Public Health, specialized in parasitic diseases, but he gained far wider influence as a guru of vertical farming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2001, he and students in a medical ecology class designed a 30-story building that theoretically could grow food for 50,000 people. Some 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables would be grown on upper floors, with chickens housed lower down. Fish would feed on plant waste.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Despommier argued that vertical farms would use 70 to 90 percent less water than traditional farms, allowing agricultural land to return to a natural state and helping to remediate climate change. He evangelized at <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XO2mVBTeBtE\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">TEDx talks<\/a> and in a book, \u201cThe Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century.\u201d<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"imageblock-wrapper\">\n<figure class=\"img-sz-small css-1189og3 e1g7ppur0\" aria-label=\"media\" role=\"group\"><figcaption data-testid=\"photoviewer-children-caption\" class=\"css-13ytnnu ewdxa0s0\"><span class=\"css-jevhma e13ogyst0\">Dr. Despommier said that when his book \u201cThe Vertical Farm\u201d was published in 2010, no such farms existed. That changed.<\/span><span class=\"css-14fe1uy e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit&#8230;<\/span><span><span aria-hidden=\"false\">Thomas Dunne Books<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen my book came out, in 2010, there were no functioning vertical farms that I was aware of,\u201d he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/01\/09\/the-vertical-farm\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told<\/a> The New Yorker several years later. \u201cBy the time I published a revised edition in 2011, vertical farms had been built in England, Holland, Japan and Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tech investors poured money into vertical farming. The operations generally substituted indoor LED lights for sunlight and used watering systems that spritzed plant roots \u2014 no soil needed. The farms sprouted in places as varied as downtown <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newarknj.gov\/news\/whats-this-farm-doing-in-the-middle-of-newark-trying-to-change-the-world-nj-com\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Newark<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/world\/dubai-gigafarm-biggest-vertical-farm-climate-hnk-spc-int\/index.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Dubai<\/a>, on the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Guardian <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2022\/aug\/17\/indoor-vertical-farms-agriculture#:~:text=It's%20estimated%20there%20are%20more,as%20lettuce%2C%20herbs%20and%20berries.\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">estimated<\/a> that there were more than 2,000 vertical farms in the U.S. in 2022, raising vegetables and fruits in stacked trays or long columns, some several stories high, some tended by robots. That year, Walmart <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.plenty.ag\/walmart-and-plenty-partner-to-lead-the-future-of-fresh-produce\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> that it would harvest salad greens from a vertical farm in Compton, Calif., to be run by a company named Plenty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More recently, the industry has stumbled. High interest rates and energy costs have caused many operations to close or declare bankruptcy. They include the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.producebluebook.com\/2024\/12\/18\/plenty-closes-compton-farm-in-strategic-shift-to-berries\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">one in Compton<\/a> and the one in Newark, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/jerseydigs.com\/aerofarms-files-bankruptcy\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">AeroFarms<\/a>, which The New Yorker featured prominently in its article about Dr. Despommier in 2017. A company with farms in three Eastern states, Bowery Farming, whose investors included Justin Timberlake and Natalie Portman and which was once valued at $2.3 billion, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/pitchbook.com\/news\/articles\/bowery-indoor-farming-agtech-company-ceases-operations\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">shut down last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Critics questioned if vertical farming really lowers carbon emissions and called it a fad. Others said the industry is merely going through a shakeout and will endure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dickson Donald Despommier was born on June 5, 1940, in New Orleans to Roland and Beverly (Wood) Despommier. His father was an accountant for a shipping line. His parents divorced when Dickson was young.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He received a B.S. in biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1962, an M.S. in medical parasitology from Columbia in 1964 and a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Notre Dame in 1967.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Despommier joined Columbia\u2019s faculty in 1971 as an assistant professor of microbiology. He taught a required course in parasitic diseases to second-year medical students for three decades. His research focused on tropical diseases; he was co-author of a textbook, \u201cParasitic Diseases,\u201d and a director of the website <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/parasiteswithoutborders.com\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cParasites Without Borders.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Besides his wife, he is survived by his sister, Duane Despommier Kuykendall; his sons, Bruce and Bradley; a stepdaughter, Molly Bloom; a stepson, Michael Goodwin; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. An earlier marriage, to Judith Forman, ended in divorce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The idea of vertical farming emerged when students told Dr. Despommier in 2000 that they were bored with his course on medical ecology. He redirected the semester by posing a question, \u201cWhat will the world be like in 2050?\u201d and a follow-up question, \u201cWhat would you <em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">like<\/em> the world to be like in 2050?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The discussion focused on how densely crowded the planet would be in 50 years and how food would have to be grown then with less water and less pollution from chemical fertilizers. Students said New York City should source all its food from close by. They suggested using the city\u2019s rooftops for agriculture. But then they calculated that if every rooftop in all five boroughs were turned into a garden, the growing acreage would feed only about 2 percent of the population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Despommier then thought of raising crops in glass and steel skyscrapers, with plants stacked on multiple levels, just like their human inhabitants. He continued to refine designs with each year\u2019s class of ecology students. In 2001, he adopted the term vertical farming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After he appeared on the Comedy Central late-night show \u201cThe Colbert Report\u201d in 2008 to discuss his eggplants-in-the-sky idea, traffic to his website shot up to 400,000 visitors overnight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many of the start-ups that turned Dr. Despommier\u2019s vision into a reality built vertical farms that were only two or three stories high, compared with the 30-story behemoths he had proposed. One was attached to a parking garage in Jackson, Wyo. Others were housed in shipping crates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the idea traversed the globe, with a nonprofit, the Association for Vertical Farming, starting up in Germany in 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">All along, skeptics questioned whether the cost and the carbon footprint of indoor farming was an improvement over the traditional kind practiced by humanity for some 12,000 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s such an appealing idea \u2014 \u2018Press floor 10 for lettuce\u2019 \u2014 that people picked up on it right away,\u201d Bruce Bugbee, a professor of crop physiology at Utah State University, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/18\/business\/energy-environment\/farms-that-rise-to-the-challenge.html\" title=\"\">told<\/a> The New York Times in 2016. \u201cThe fundamental problem is that plants need a lot of light. It\u2019s free outside. If we\u2019re going to do it inside, it will require the burning of a lot of fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The industry shakeout has been brutal, with the editor of the news site Vertical Farming Today <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/jerseydigs.com\/aerofarms-files-bankruptcy\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">declaring<\/a> in 2023 that venture capital investments in vertical farming had fallen by about 90 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Unfazed, Dr. Despommier kept brainstorming about how modern life could thrive in the face of a dangerously changing climate. In his last book, \u201cThe New City: How to Build Our Sustainable Urban Future\u201d (2023), he proposed that cities henceforth be built of wood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The carbon footprint of making concrete and steel, he explained, is enormous, whereas wood is a carbon sink \u2014 trees absorb carbon from the air as they grow \u2014 and new technologies for engineering timbers allowed very tall buildings to be built.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt sounds like we\u2019ll be using up all the wood,\u201d he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/the-new-yorker-interview\/dickson-despommier-wants-our-cities-to-be-like-forests\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> last year, \u201cbut the fact is that, if vertical farming succeeds, there\u2019ll be a lot more land to grow trees.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/18\/science\/dickson-despommier-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dickson Despommier, a microbiologist who proposed that cities should grow food in high-rises, popularizing the term \u201cvertical farming\u201d \u2014 an<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[620,1427,2672,441,2669,2670,658,181,1447,2671],"class_list":["post-7124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-agriculture-and-farming","tag-buildings-structures","tag-columbia-university","tag-deaths-obituaries","tag-despommier","tag-dickson-1940-2025","tag-environment","tag-global-warming","tag-microbiology","tag-sustainable-living"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dickson Despommier, Who Championed Farming in Skyscrapers, Dies at 84 - World News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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