It’s true what you’ve heard: farm animals have joined the rat race.
That’s because farms themselves are moving into cities, with ‘vertical farms’ taking over skyscrapers and high rise buildings.
Critics of say that it industrializes farming to an alarming degree. Proponents say it makes for a more efficient farm footprint, allowing more land to be rewilded.
Farm animals themselves seem to think that a change of scenery might be just the thing.
“I am soooo tired of being asked if I was brought up in a barn,” said Rory Rooster, in an interview with The Silo Reporter. “Just last week my cousin, a Cockatiel from Sydney, was visiting and he said my place was bucolic. Just as soon as I look up what that means, I’m going to feel insulted.”
Percy, a pig currently living just outside of the Hague, agrees. “My uncle Frank Ng is a Vietnamese Pot Belly living in Manhattan. He can be such a snob, I want to kick him in the chops. I can’t wait to move in to my new place, so I can tell him where I’m bringing home the bacon.”
Fin and Haddie, two retired fish living in a lake outside Edinburgh, recently took a tour of an aquaponics tower that also grows plants and fungi. They were skeptical, but seem to have warmed to the idea. “At first,” Fin said, “we thought we’d be fish out of water, living in a high rise like this. But then we cod on to the idea, and so we’ll be putting our names on the waiting list, you know, just for the halibut.”
Another fish, speaking to the Reporter on condition of anonymity, has a few reservations about the sheer number of tenants. “I hope they’re selective in who they let into the building,” he fretted. “I mean, we don’t want it to become a roughy neighbourhood. And mushrooms? Well, I’d certainly like to know what kind of mushrooms they’ll have in there, if you know what I mean.”
Indeed, getting used to new neighbours in close quarters won’t be the only adjustment that these transplanted rural residents will have to make. They’ll have to learn to deal with a landlord and monthly utility bills and watch that they don’t get their fins or feathers caught in the elevator doors. And a trip to the hayloft for a midnight snack might be dangerous: it’s at least six stories up.
For now, vertical operations mostly move into existing buildings and renovate. But in future, we might see purpose-built farm buildings in the city. Cowdominiums, for example.
Early studies done of bovine and equestrian focus groups suggest that units in such a complex would be snapped up if the building included an indoor paddock, and streaming TV access. Preferred programs apparently included the popular soap opera “The Bold and the Thoroughbreds” and the British serial “Cowanation St.” The Food Network would of course be banned.
“I’d move in like this,” said one horse, trying unsuccessfully to snap his hoof. He leaned forward and winked. “Especially if the new building is next to the first one with the poultry. I want to pick up chicks.”
One ewe, representing another faction of the ruminant crowd, sniffed and rolled her eyes at this. “Oh please,” she bleated. “You just want to be closer to those perverted, exotic animal bars, you know, the ones featuring emu and buffalo. Those things are such meat markets.”
Vertical farm industry insiders acknowledge that they’ll have to be careful with the quality of both the buildings and the venues in the neighbourhoods. “But those who openly worry about such things, and spread rumours are probably just hoping to knock down property values a little,” said one source. “It’s amazing what tenants will do to try and get sheep rent.”
Although the high rise farm idea probably came about because of a lack of space in the Netherlands, the popularity and efficiency of the project might prompt other agriculturalists to try it out.
And if that’s the case, dear readers, you might find your local farmers going Dutch too.