I’m the staff adviser for the CUNY Urban Agriculture Study Group, and we have a blog. If you’re interested in this topic, follow urbanagriculture.

Via urbanagriculture:

“We are trying to demonstrate that sustainable, urban agriculture can be economically viable in the city,” said the company’s greenhouse director, Jennifer Nelkin, 30.

Nevin Cohen, an assistant professor of Urban Environmental Studies at The New School, said Gotham Greens could be poised to catch the food wave of the future in the city.

“Growing food in cities is going to become increasingly important,” Cohen said, “and this is a great model of how we can use currently unused space to produce food.”

Nelkin and the company’s managing director, Viraj Puri, met while working at an engineering nonprofit known as New York Sun Works. There, they helped develop the Science Barge, a hydroponic greenhouse built atop a barge formerly moored on the Hudson River.

The Science Barge showed that a sprawling tract of land isn’t necessary to have a productive farm, said Puri, 27.

“The biggest challenge that we are facing right now is not the technology - we know the technology,” Nelkin said. “It’s moving this technology into the city.”