Urban Farms In Corn Figures
Corn harvest are 10 tons per hectare or 1 kilo per sqr m of land, using traditional farming methods. Total corn harvests in the US totals 250 million tons. This means the total land area used for corn farming is 25 million hectares or 250,000 sqk km. Priced at US$25 billion, this works out to be US$100 per ton. Using hydroponic Urban Farming in cities, with yield rate of just 25 tons per 1000 sqr m farm out of the possible 43 tons per farm, 250 million tons will require only 10,000 sqr km. Note that 25 tons per 1000 sqr meter green house farms can actually have 3 harvest per year considering corn matures in 3-4 months. Thus 25 tons is actually 8 tons per harvest or 8 kilos per sqr m.
Using the top 3 US cities of New York, with 8,683 sqr km, Los Angeles, with 4,320 sqr km and Chicago, with 2,128 sqr km, a total urban area of 15,131 sqr km is available. Thus, the 10,000 sqr km required to produce the year harvest of corn is just 66% of this.