Floating Farms Gain Traction as Climate-Adaptive Solution

From Rotterdam to India, floating farms offer a viable response to flooding and rising sea levels, bringing food production closer to urban consumers.

The Floating Farm in Rotterdam, operational since 2019, is a three-tiered structure where cows graze on hay and rinds of oranges, with canopies overhead collecting rainwater for them to drink. The cows are milked by an automatic machine and a robot mops up manure to be turned into organic fertilizer.
The Floating Farm sells the milk, cheese and buttermilk produced by the cows in a small shop on dry land next to its harbor berth. The owners plan to add a second floating farm in the same harbor for vertical agriculture, growing vegetables indoors under lights in stacks of growing beds, irrigated with water purified in part with heat from the cows' manure.
In coastal and low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh, the South Asian Forum for Environment is reviving a traditional practice of creating floating rafts that keep seedlings above monsoon flood waters. The bamboo rafts are built larger and heavier to withstand storms, and solar-powered pumps collect rainwater to irrigate the seedlings.
The number of floating farms in India and Bangladesh has more than doubled to 500 in a few years. Vegetables like medicinal plants, spinach and chilies are cultivated on the floating platforms, and farmers can also raise crabs to be fattened for market in floating boxes.
Floating farms are seen as a viable response to flooding and rising sea levels and a way of bringing food production closer to consumers, reducing the carbon footprint. However, the success of floating farms is expected to vary by region, and scaling up to contribute substantially to the sustainability of urban food systems is seen as a challenge.