Professor Dickson Despommier is not an environmentalist, but he believes he holds a key to the sustainable future of food. In fact, the microbiologist of Columbia University can’t thank his students enough for nudging him onto a new carrier path after his research grants ran out. “I can’t wait for the day I can send a nice check to each one”, says the father of vertical farming in a reference to the students who have participated in his research—especially those who, in 2000, first imagined the impact of turning the roofs of New York City into vegetable patches back in 2000.

After about a decade of research, Professor Despommier is sure of one thing: in a world where more than half of the population lives in cities, sustainable farming will look less like “The Little House on the Prairie” and more like human settlements on Mars: indoor food-growing installations deployed in tall buildings with a highly controlled environment, where the ultra-clean air eliminates the need for pesticides, hydroponics (agriculture without soil) minimizes water consumption, waste is recycled to generate energy and where evaporation produces drinking water. In this season-free world, crops turn over as fast as nature will allow, meaning that a lot more people can be fed than can be by an outdoor farm of the same acreage.

“This is not ‘organic farming’, it is ‘beyond organic farming’,” says Professor Despommier. “After almost 10 years of studying this under all angles, I can say confidently that there is no downside to this concept”, he adds. In his world, food refrigeration and shipping would  be dramatically reduced, with a beneficial impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Vertical farms of all sizes, including small ones attached to schools and hospitals, would also help cities close the loops of their waste, energy and water processes. Meanwhile, out in the country, more and more farm land would be given back to nature and farmers would be rewarded for planting trees and nurturing the local biodiversity.

At any rate, the promise of  urban farming on a large scale has already inspired talent outside of the scientific world. From Paris to Seattle, architects, in particular, have unleashed their creativity as they conjure up green towers that could grace our downtowns in the near future.

According to Professor Despommier, the first prototype will be built in the desert. “We’ve received a lot of interest from the Middle-East. They are very food-dependent, and in places like Qatar, they can afford to explore a new way to develop their own food production capacities,” he explains. He’s hopeful that his trip to Jordan with USAID this month will yield some promising fruit.