The remarkable decline of green spaces in urban areas pushes a lot to try to keep green colors, even in an industrial form, in the form of plants and plastic decorations, in the absence of sufficient places to cultivate additional and additional green spaces.
According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban areas around the world should exceed 66%, and in Europe 82%, which means a clear increase in human pressure, pollution and erosion, in exchange for green areas that have decreased with a significant negative impact on biological diversity.
This is why vertical agriculture, as a form of unconventional agriculture, has more and more popularity, and research speaks of a promising future, because younger entrepreneurs are attracted to it, with a transformation of aerial towers full of green plants to an aesthetic component within the decoration of houses and cities symbolizing sustainability.
Vegetables in front of plastic plants
One of the most important evidence of the idea of vertical agriculture, and is not the only one in this context, because many successful experiences in the world have attracted students and researchers to explore the world of vertical agriculture, including Nada Saber, the young woman who is still in her second year in the College of Agriculture and who took the idea early.
It is true that she has not exceeded twenty years, but it was created with her colleagues from the agricultural engineering department of the University of Alexandria, a start in the name of “Azzi Lee”, mainly focusing on the aesthetic capacities provided by vertical agriculture.
“Vertical agriculture is characterized by abundant production without the need for large spaces, our goal was when we started our project to publish the idea of vertical agriculture in houses, and we discovered that many resorts to the purchase of plastic plants as a decoration at great prices due to the difficulty of taking care of real plants, the lack of experience and the experience of the death of plants”
“Many prefer plastic plants despite their faults because they are easy, and it is the password from which we started, we wanted to decipher all these complications after having studied them well, and providing an aesthetic and practical solution at a reasonable price thanks to the production of vegetable towers which do not need experience, soil, space or even care, we provide the required requirements, nutrients and semets. “
“We have also prepared a directive and a system to operate the tower and automatically change water every 8 days.
Walls and green towers on the road
An exceptional vision drawn by the Department of Urban Planning and Urban Policy at the College of Urban Instmante and public affairs of the University of Illinois in Chicago in 2018, included in a research document on the growing interest of politicians, planners and architects in the vertical model of the vertical city, including dynamic forms, green spaces, functional needs of the attractive form.
Chicago researchers have identified in their research document published in MDPE magazine design programs which can combine sustainability with emblematic architectural nature. Ideas have opened the door to more imagination on giant green walls, earthless vertical gardens and a green color that surrounds the yellow cities, which are ideas to support more researchers.
In a study entitled “Urban vertical agriculture is an example of naturally solutions”, Polish researchers discovered in 2021 that vertical urban farms played an important role in light of climate change and increasing environmental degradation and the linked loss of agricultural land, and that it is an alternative to traditional agriculture, and its integration with green and blue infractures. Environmental, social and economic center and appreciated in contemporary cities.
Research has shown that vertical farms can fulfill several functions and obtain various advantages for city residents, because these vertical farms allow the creation of interdependent links in a vital system which guarantees a vertical green space in overcrowded cities.
On the same approach, two Iraqi researchers walked in a study entitled “The characteristic of vertical agriculture on horizontal agriculture in the realization of urban sustainability”, because they have concluded the role that vertical agriculture plays as an essential component in the urban context and carrying out sustainable cities in the coming years in Iraq.
Agriculture in schools and universities
Whenever Nada Saber and her colleagues go to a school or university to explain the idea of air agriculture, she takes a tower with her from that on which they worked to become a permanent means of propaganda at the idea, until their towers decorate the entries of many institutions in Egypt.
“We discovered that the main obstacle to the propagation of the idea at present is the high cost, so we have designed a box of 15 plants at a simple price which contains tomato plants, zucchini and pepper, which can be easily placed on any window, and that managed to succeed in coming, so we have decided to work more rounds at a wider cost in the years to come,” said Saber.
“We really want to become plants with their vertical scene in the context of the lifestyle of the Egyptians,” she concludes.