Rooftop Farms—Myth or Reality

For more than 30 years, rooftop gardens have brightened the urban landscape with varying shades of green. Nowadays, resourceful New Yorkers grow a plethora of plants, from delicate ferns to flowering hydrangea to towering trees, while vegetable gardens flourish on rooftops and adorn windowsills and fire escapes.

Since gardens can grow on high, is it conceivable that farms could soon sprout on rooftops around the city? The answer is a resounding YES, according to New York Sun Works, a non-profit group of environmentalists advocating the use of the city’s 14,000 acres of unused rooftops for that purpose.

Sun Works currently operates a science barge on the Hudson River. The barge is outfitted with a greenhouse—powered by solar panels and wind turbines—where cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce are grown.

Ted Caplow, an environmental engineer who heads Sun Works, claims that enough fresh vegetables could be grown in hydroponic greenhouses on rooftops to feed 20 million people year round. New Yorkers’ health would also benefit as rooftop farms would significantly reduce carbon emissions since fewer trucks would be needed to deliver produce.

Whether myth or reality, the idea is intriguing, and ... who knows? Someday in the not too distant future, we may buy vegetables labeled “grown on organic rooftops.”