Urban farming the worlds first floating farm.

Hi everyone,

This is an interesting concept a floating farm in Rotterdam harbour, it's 3 stories and the cows graze on the top tier they go to be milked robotically, the slurry is turned into compost.

The organisers said how at the moment the mantra in food production was cost cost cost when we have to have sustainability and the premise behind this is local food produced in the city, they are planning 2 more one for several thousand chicken and another for veggies.

They also said how lots of children don't know where food comes from? of course they do Tesco's...LOL

I prefer the thought of a floating veg farm but it saves air miles and means that food is produced much closer to home.

floatingfarm.nl/?lang=en

It kind of looks like something out of a science fiction movie to me but I love the concept of city farms.

[Zest]

Hi Hidden

I saw this floating farm somewhere - it does look interesting. Thanks for sharing the article about it. I haven't read it yet, but I will hope to do so later.

Zest

[Hidden in reply to Zest]

I had this weird vision of a modern day Noah's ark...

I think it's fascinating at a cost of 3M euros with 32 cattle they break even because of their dairy products.

Jerry. 😊

[Activity2004 Administrator]

Hi Hidden ,

Thank you for posting the link for the floating farm. This is the first time I ever seen/heard of one being done. Very interesting.

[Hidden]

Hi Hidden

This sounds very similar to an article I read and shared about a month ago on the Vegan Foods for Life group, not sure about this.

This is the link to the article I read:

healthunlocked.com/veganfoo...

Let's just say I'm not convinced and totally agree with you, a floating veg farm would be much better, a lot less air miles for sure and more local.

Alicia

[MTCee]

I think I saw this on the bbc news website a while ago. The cows don’t actually live on the floating farm. They graze in nearby fields and return to the floating farm only to be milked which is done robotically so they get to choose when they want to be milked themselves. Sounds like this would make them happy, since they’d have some control over their own lives. Presumably chickens would return to the floating farm to roost at night and lay their eggs. And of course free roaming vegetables could also return to care for their little seedlings........ 😂

I think I’ve seen better ideas for growing veggies in cities, like on skyscraper roof tops and with artificial light/hydroponics in basements. Most rivers and docks in cities seem taken up by floating homes, whereas any lakes are usually in parks and people wouldn’t want them there either.

[Hidden]

Hi MTCee this was on the BBC in 2018 and the cows do now live onboard they have an outside pasture which they would go onto for a couple of hours because they prefer being in the barn where its warmer. The interviewer asked if they got sea sick and they don't.

I don't know how the chicken one would work out as they're talking about thousands so there could indeed be the odd splash...

Really this is not the future in my opinion as 3M Euro's to raise 30 cattle seems extravagant and flamboyant and is a business take on city farms. This ship is 3 stories high and they're planning skyscraper ones...

So I agree roof farming seems much cheaper and simpler. 😊