The Dutch husband-and-wife team are experimenting with a high-tech dairy they call Floating Farm.
Their herd of Maas-Rijn-Ijssel cows produce about 757 liters of milk daily which they process into butter, yogourt and cheeses, all on the boat.
Wingerden got the idea when he was in New York and saw how hurricane Sandy devastated the city. His solution is to nearly 929 square meters of space for farming that floats on the water. If successful, his experiment would not be vulnerable to rising sea levels or destructive floods.
Wingerden is an aquatic engineer.
Should a weather crisis arise, a waterborne farm isn’t necessarily stuck in place. An urban farm that serves city dwellers also reduces carbon emissions associated with food transportation. And a farm on water also helps to take a little pressure off the global land squeeze.
The Van Wingerdens’ experimental farm floats on pontoons, rising and falling with the tides which, in Rotterdam, fluctuate about eight feet .
The rubber-floor on the top level has robotic milkers. There is a gangplank to a small pasture on land.
The middle level is where the milk is processed into butter, yogurt and other dairy products. It is also equipped to gather rain and desalinate ocean water for the cows.
The manure is processed into fertilizer for local soccer fields where grass clippings are kept to feed the cows.
The bottom level of the boat is for storing and aging up to 1,000 rounds of gouda-style cheeses.
Joshua Faulkner, a research assistant professor and the program coordinator for the University of Vermont’s farming and climate change program, says extreme weather has rendered the world of farming unrecognizable from what it was only decades ago.
“Farmers used to be able to count on certain things being normal, like dates of planting and dates of harvesting. Over the past 10 to 15 years, these assumptions have been thrown out the window and farmers are having to rewrite the book.”
Another approach is vertical farming in structures somewhat like high-rise buildings.
Gold Leaf Technologies in Guelph offers plans for farmers to get started.
It says on its website that “besides the obvious benefits of more locally grown produce, increased nutrition and freshness, lower transportation costs and positive climate impacts, another advantage of vertical farming is a dramatic decrease in the amount of water required to produce the crops.
“Some estimates see vertical farming using 90 to 95 per cent less water than traditional farming, an incredible figure which will become more important as we work to increase the preservation of our water resources.”
