Recently we posted about how there’s a building in China with fake windows and today we’ve found something remarkable again happening in China. Chinese rooftops have been in the news for quite a number of times for different reasons. There were reports of a mountain villa at Beijing and then came news of a temple on top of a skyscraper and today we have what might be the future of farming in the years to come. Meet Peng Qiugen, the guy who own and manages his farm in the sky. This farm in the sky is located 40 ft above from the ground on the roof of his home which is a four storey house in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province.
Mr. Peng is farming rice, fruits and vegetables on his farm and is actually doing this on commercial scale so you can discard the idea of him treating this as a hobby. The rooftop’s area is 120 square meters and the farmer has done a splendid job with this limited space. During last year, he was able to come up with about 400 kg of watermelon from this fertile and small farm of his. This amount is 30% higher than what could have been harvested from the ground level. His next target is to cultivate rice and although there have been some drawbacks due to the typhoon ‘Fitow’, he is hoping to come up with enough rice that could last a year if one adult was eating them.
He is not quite sure but he speculates that there wont be much soil erosion or water loss. Thats the main reason why the production at this farm is quite high than ground level farms. His neighbors are actually quite happy with what he is doing up here and are infact eager to help him out. There have been no issues with the local authorities so far as well. We hope that doesn’t happen, ever.
As mentioned earlier, this might be the solution to farming issues on the ground and this idea might take off and we could see a lot more of such farms in the sky in coming decades.
