As Inc.com’s Bill Saporito reports, a new innovation called “controlled environment agriculture” is poised to shake up how we grow food. By stacking greenhouses vertically in abandoned buildings, entrepreneurs are growing food in less time with higher yields, using up to 95 percent less water, no pesticides and a dramatically shorter supply chain. As a result, vertical farms can be up to 400 times more productive than traditional farms. 

This approach may help mitigate environmental problems like pesticides and water usage, and could reduce the number of “food deserts,” miles of urban sprawl with no affordable fruit and vegetables. It could even bridge the divide between farms and cities. Farms are currently operating in South Kearney, New Jersey, in warehouses that stood empty for years. 

In Scripture, God demonstrates an affinity for both gardens and cities, and innovations like this reflect how God made people to think. What’s more, it undermines climate anxiety like the kind made popular by Paul Ehrlich, which treats people as problems to be solved. He predicted millions would starve; instead, people are once again innovating and solving problems.