[jtdev]

Are you sure you want to trade farming of land for whatever development or use of that land may occur when/if our hypothetical 720 acre farm is retired from ag production? Their seems to be an assumption that the next owner will be a steward of these lands.

[ogre_codes]

Farmland isn't going to be developed for the same reason it's not currently being developed, it's either zoned so development is difficult, or too far from the city to be interesting for development.

Also, unless we figure out how to replace all crops with vertical efficient farms, demand for agriculture is going to remain. It will just shift to different crops which can't be farmed this way.

[brandelune]

Actually no. In Japan, where I live, the country side is covered by development projects that destroy rice pads, mostly because there are tax incentives for that. In France, where I come from that's the same.

Perfectly good arable land is not being misused for development projects that don't mean anything when you know for ex. that Japanese population is in decline and creating individual houses far from the center of the city is going totally against what should be done to counter potential food crisis and the real environmental crisis. Etc.

[ogre_codes]

> In Japan, where I live, the country side is covered by development projects that destroy rice pads, mostly because there are tax incentives for that.

Sounds like an existing problem, not something which vertical farming is going to accelerate.

[adrianN]

We don't really have other uses for the vast amounts of land our food (and energy crop) production currently consumes.

[jtdev]

Development would certainly claim at least a fraction of those lands.