Loading ...The world’s first floating farm making waves in Rotterdam
The world’s first offshore dairy farm opens in the Port of Rotterdam this year, with the aim of helping the city produce more of its own food sustainably. But will such farms ever be able to produce enough to feed the world’s growing urban populations?
A Dutch property company, Beladon, is launching the world’s first “floating farm” in a city port.
It has built the offshore facility right in the middle of Rotterdam’s Merwehaven harbour and will use it to farm 40 Meuse-Rhine-Issel cows milked by robots.
Built-up urban areas may not seem like the most sensible places to run farms, but reducing the distance food travels before it reaches consumers’ plates makes environmental sense as it reduces transport pollution.
And if the global population grows to 9.8 billion by 2050 as expected, 70% are forecast to live in cities – up from 55% today.