Tag: farm

Imagine a world: GPS Breakdown

Here lies a thought experiment, in the wild, of imagining a world where specific technologies or situations arise. This isn’t meant as a comprehensive overview, but rather a scratch-pad in the open.

What would happen when the Global Positioning System (GPS) degrades?

GPS is a low-earth orbit based system consisting of a constellation of satellites, with hyper-accurate atomic clocks, which rely on the radio receiver seeing four or more satellites in order to gain a fix on your location on Earth. It was built and maintained by the US Government, specifically by the Air Force, and can be shut off at anytime. Rival systems such as Russia’s GLONASS or China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite or European Union Galileo positioning system, and India’s NAVIC are similar systems. We’ll use GPS as a shorthand for any system which gives us specific location on Earth for simplicity.

Imagine a world where GPS is degraded due to any reason, either as a tactical action during war, intentional sabotage, or neglect. What does this world look like?

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Flyover Farm by Fresh & Local

Flyover Farm Sketch

Via Mumbai Boss, comes the story of Flyover Farm by Fresh & Local which is aiming to add farms on top of existing Mumbai buildings, and they have a Kickstarter:

Fresh & Local is a movement to facilitate urban farming in Mumbai. We started in the spring of 2010, in reaction to the lack of fresh and organic produce, and the lack of resources and support for urban farming in the city. We research and develop best practices, design gardens and garden products, host gardening workshops and work in partnership with NGOs and individuals to set up kitchen gardens across the city.

Fresh and Local’s Flyover Farm project is a natural progression and culmination of the work currently being carried out.

Flyover Farm Existing

This is all really interesting, but seeing the existing building stock which is generally of poor construction and knowing how much soil is required to grow fruit and vegetable plants, I fear that not many building can support the weight of these roof farms. I applaud the project, since we have lots of roof space in Mumbai, and the quality of vegetables will undoubtably be better than the ones grown on the sides of the suburban railways.