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The world's first floating dairy farm will be built in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, where 60 cows will produce dairy products for the city while helping to reduce the environmental impact of commercial dairy farming.
Each cow will have around 160 square feet of space – more than most land–based dairy farms – while being contained within a space 30 to 50 times smaller. The cows' food will be grown on–site.
The floating farm, which is scheduled to complete in December 2016 and will sit in the city's port close to the border with Schiedam, will also have a laboratory and will provide guided tours for children and students. The aim is to educate and bring producer and consumer closer together, thus reducing the logistics of the dairy supply chain.
Image: Floating Farm
It’s also an experiment to see to what extent cities are able to become self-sufficient in the future. Check out Swale, a sustainable floating food forest in New York.
The farmhub is a collaboration between Courage, the innovation institute of the Dutch agriculture and dairy sector, farming innovator Uit Je Eigen Stad, and a floating concepts company called Beladon.
"The long-term idea is to create cities that are completely self-sufficient on essential elements like clean water, energy, food, and waste—to create this inside these cities on oceans," Peter van Wingerde, director of Beladon, told Co.Exist.
