Floating Farm
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Project by: Beladon International BV
Challenge: How can we help city dwellers understand where food comes from? Project description: Producing and transporting food for our growing cities is becoming a bigger challenge by the day. As metropolises grow and availability of arable land decreases, an unhealthy disconnect is developing between citizens and the natural world: people no longer know where their food comes from. According to the organisation behind the Floating Farm project, cities are increasingly seeing new opportunities to bridge this gap through the production of local food, reducing transportation and cleaning cities, a process they call “transfarmation”. The Floating Farm, a 1000 m2 floating platform on the Rotterdam harbour, is a world first: built in concrete, with galvanised steel frames and a membrane floor that lets cow urine soak through, it uses robots to top up food stations and mop up dried cow dung. The 40 resident cows are mainly fed on waste produced by local businesses. They can wander freely on the platform’s top floor, and can also cross to a pasture on dry land. As well as producing 800 litres of milk and other related products a day, the Floating Farm acts as a learning environment, opening its doors to schools and the general public, who can see the cows and become familiar with the processes that take place on the farm. |
Project phase: Complete
Location: Rotterdam |