The idea of farming usually connotes living in the country, working with the land and getting your hands dirty, but new ways of “urban farming,” are bringing the farming lifestyle to cities, high-rises and other urban environments.

The UK, Japan and America have come up with some truly innovative ways for technology and farming to work together which will benefit everything from personal projects to multimillion-dollar innovations.

UK

• Postcardens is a tiny garden made out of recycled greeting cards.  Each “desk spaced” size Postcarden comes with cress seeds that grow in a few days and last about 2 weeks.
• MyFarm is a real farm in Cambridgeshire, England that allows digital crowds to help decide how the farm runs its day -to-day operations.  “A group of 10,000 online “farmers” will then get to work with the farm manager and vote on the farm’s major decisions, all for an annual fee of $47.”  This is a way to blend education and the Internet.
• Farm:Shop is creating a community of urban farmers who provide their own personal grown goods to the central Farm: Shop and then sell them.  The cool part of this project is the use of “aquaponics, ” which is hooking up a fish tank as the watering system.

Japan

• Merry Project is a rooftop garden project for smaller herbs and produce.  This tiny gardens are housed in bottle caps and only $2.
• Green Potato is a project that seeks out abandoned or wasted spaces and grows sweet potatoes on the roof.  The organization chose this crop because it is able to grow in harsher conditions (aka on a roof).
• Pasona 02 is a project that converts old underground vaults into valuable green space.  Using light-emitting diodes, metal halide lamps and sodium vapor lamps, these vaults are now spaces that can grow rice, fruits and vegetables.

If you’re interested in what we are doing in the US and if there are any ideas that you can use, check out the full article and project descriptions here: http://mashable.com/2012/02/01/urban-farming-technology/