Natural Humanists believe that every single part of the Earth’s land should ideally be wild and biodiverse, but they acknowledge that the number of human beings on the planet, has already reached a massive 8,200 million[i], and is expected to continue to increase significantly in the future. They therefore accept that, to be able to meet the essential needs of such a massive number of human beings for things like food and housing, there is no option but to ‘steal’ land from all the other species of living things that have a need and natural right to use it.
However, they believe that this places a very strong moral duty on human beings to always use all such ‘stolen’ land in the most efficient and responsible way possible, without any exceptions.
When it comes to providing food for human beings, Natural Humanists believe that the only moral and responsible option, is for all human beings to follow a vegan diet. They also believe that, ideally, this diet should fully meet all their nutritional needs, but should not unnecessarily exceed these needs, because doing so irresponsibly wastes all of the planet’s land that’s needed to grow this unnecessary excess food, while also requiring the killing of living animals and plants, for no good reason.
They believe that, as quickly as it’s environmentally-responsible to do so, a plan should be made to gradually permanently replace all of the world’s land that’s used for any form of agriculture, including all land used to house or graze farm animals, and all land used to grow crops to feed humans and their pets and farm animals, with the most land-efficient, large, square, high-rise indoor agricultural facilities, which grow only vegan foods, using hydroponic ‘vertical’ agriculture, or significantly more water-efficient ‘aeroponic’ agriculture[ii].
This would allow all crops to be grown anywhere in the world, regardless of climate and soil quality, and would also allow 10 or even 100 times more crops to be grown per acre of land, as well as allowing numerous harvests of each crop per year, as the ‘climate’ inside the building can be ideal 100% of the time, all year round, regardless of the seasons. It would also allow the number of hours of artificial L.E.D. ‘daylight’ to be maximised, in order to ensure the most efficient growth of crops and would even allow the ideal colours of L.E.D. lighting to be used and constantly varied, to further increase the growth and healthy development of these plants[iii].
Natural Humanists believe that any former agricultural land, not needed for this land-efficient indoor agriculture, should be returned, permanently, to wild, biodiverse environments, like natural non-commercial woodland, wildflower meadows and lakes. In the past, to increase the amount of land available for growing human food-crops, natural lakes were filled-in and streams and rivers were either re-routed or were hidden underground in large pipes, with devastating effects on wildlife.
Indoor aeroponic vertical agriculture involves very large, very tall and ideally square buildings housing row after row of crops, all grown in troughs, stacked vertically on top of each other, possibly 10, 20 or even hundreds of troughs high.
All of these crops are grown without any soil at all. Instead, seeds or seedlings are held in place, while their roots grow in mid-air, suspended above these troughs, while, at set intervals, throughout the plants’ life, a fine mist of nutrient-rich water is sprayed at their roots, which allows the crops to obtain all the water and nutrition they need to grow quickly and efficiently[iv], and results in healthy, nutritious vegan foods, low in pesticides and all other unnatural chemicals.
Aeroponics allows almost any plant to grow quickly and to remain healthy, as it provides all the clean air, water, and nutrients it needs, without pests, infections or extremes of weather, and with ideal levels of CO2 in the air, to maximise photosynthesis[v].
This highly efficient system minimises the amount of water needed to grow crops, as any water not absorbed by the roots can be automatically collected and reused, unlike when crops are grown outside[vi]. This also, results in no water being lost into soil, and to very little being lost to evaporation, as would happen when rainwater is exposed to the sun outdoors. The building’s dehumidification system can also collect evaporated water, while also ensuring air humidity levels are ideal, to promote healthy growth and to prevent diseases affecting the plants[vii].
The amount and frequency of water automatically sprayed onto plants’ roots, can be set to suit the precise needs of each type of plant, so that each one can remain healthy, and grow quickly. Each plant also needs to be fed less nutrients, as these are sprayed within a mist of water, directly onto the roots, where they can be taken up by the plant more efficiently, rather than much of them being lost to the soil, like in traditional agriculture[viii].
Air can also circulate more freely around each plant and its roots, as the support structure keeps individual plants apart, giving their roots more access to oxygen. This maximises growth and also reduces the risk of diseases, which can often spread through soil[ix].
Temperature and humidity levels can be automatically controlled, and low-energy L.E.D. lights provide the ideal amount of ‘artificial daylight’ throughout the day and night, allowing plants to grow quickly and healthily, and also allowing crops to be grown all year round, so that, rather than having just one harvest per year, the same bit of land can produce 4 or even 6 harvests per year, or as many as 30 harvests in the case of strawberries[x], [xi].
This effectively eliminates the idea of ‘seasonal’ produce, as crops can grow all year round, even in locations where climate or soil conditions would normally make it impossible[xii], potentially removing the need to import food, and protecting countries from ‘food insecurity’, which is one of the main causes of ‘absolute poverty’ [xiii].
The colour of these L.E.D. lights can even be changed automatically, so that only lights of the colours which maximise healthy growth at different stages of the plants’ development are ever used[xiv], maximising their health and growth, while also improving both their taste and their health-giving properties[xv].
Aeroponic crops are often grown organically, in sterile conditions, which totally removes the need to use herbicides and pesticides, allowing healthier and tastier crops, with less damage to nature[xvi].
Growing food closer to where people live can also remove the need for environmentally damaging transportation of food, as well as reducing the risk that food will deteriorate during transport and will have to be thrown away.
With aeroponics, vertically stacked rows of crops can often be tended to, and monitored by, Artificial Intelligence and robots, without the need for human involvement, thereby freeing humans to make more important uses of their time.
Stacks of crops, perhaps 20 or more rows high, use up hugely less land than is needed to grow the same amount of food crops on traditional farmland. For example, even if there are only 10 stacked rows of crops on one bit of land, then for every 10 acres of agricultural land, 9 whole acres of land can be permanently returned to wild biodiverse nature, with only 1 acre being needed for these huge aeroponic buildings, which could easily be ‘hidden’ inside permanent woodland, to completely block them from human beings’ view, if they were considered an ‘eyesore’.
These huge buildings could have ‘green’ wildflower meadow rooves, so that even the relatively small amount of land taken up by these buildings could add to the world’s biodiversity, which, in theory, would mean that none of the world’s human food need ever ‘rob’ the world of any potentially biodiverse land.
Even the very high walls of these buildings could be completely covered, from top to bottom, by a series of carefully angled, highly efficient solar-panels, which, themselves, wouldn’t take up any land at all, unlike the growing number of hugely irresponsible, and hugely low-biodiversity ‘solar-farms’ that are appearing throughout the world, usually to make profit for capitalist enterprises, which cover potentially wild biodiverse land with solar panels, or even cover the sea, which denies seabirds, sea creatures and marine plant life a natural existence.
This free and green solar-energy could help to power the building’s low energy L.E.D. lighting, and any limited amount of heating, cooling, (de)humidification or ventilation that these buildings and their crops need, although this itself could be minimised by ensuring that all of these buildings meet the latest ‘True Net Zero Carbon Building’ [xvii] standards, which would result in them effectively being sealed, hugely well-insulated ‘boxes’, which maintain internal temperatures at ideal levels with little or no heating or cooling required. Even north-facing walls of these buildings could be covered entirely with green ‘living walls’, covered with plants that thrive in the shade[xviii].
These aeroponic buildings would allow food to be grown efficiently, all year round, even in inhospitable locations and climates, such as extremely cold, hot or wet areas, and even in areas where no crops can usually be grown at all, which also have a very low potential for biodiversity, like deserts, or on rocky or polluted land. Using such inhospitable land and climatic regions for food production would also allow even more land to be freed up elsewhere in the country, or the world, allowing it to be permanently returned to biodiverse wilderness, in areas with a climate and land-type better suited to this biodiversity.
Dickson Despommier[xix], a professor of environmental health sciences and microbiology, suggested that 30-storey farms were perfectly possible, and that they could be built in residential areas, to eliminate ‘food miles’, and could be powered by anaerobic digestion of waste from nearby homes and businesses[xx], which would fit in well with Natural Humanists’ belief in large multi-storey residential living, although they could also be powered by solar-panels on the south-facing walls and roof of the aeroponics building. He also believed that, if dwarf versions of crops, like wheat, were grown vertically (in stacks), a 2 hectare building could produce a similar amount of crops to a 1,000 hectare traditional farm[xxi], so, using 500 times less land.
Currently, a vertical farm, which is controlled by Artificial Intelligence in Virginia, USA, uses 97% less land and 97% less water than traditional farming,[xxii] potentially making it ideal in countries susceptible to extreme climates and famine, particularly when sun is readily available to power solar panels.
As vegans, Natural Humanists believe it’s hugely significant that, although vegan food doesn’t directly involve the killing of animals, the use of potentially wild biodiverse land to grow fields of plant foods, prevents a huge variety of wild plants, animals and other living things from ever existing at all.
Traditional arable agriculture is also responsible for the death of existing wildlife, including the millions of mice that are killed every year during mechanical harvesting of fields. Arguably, just as the death of cows is the responsibility of people who eat beef, so the death of these mice and other animals, and the prevention of other species living at all, due to the lack of biodiversity, is just as much the responsibility of every vegan who eats traditionally farmed plant foods.
The large, square, high-rise aeroponic agricultural buildings which are the solution to these problems, could have pitched (sloping) ‘green’ rooves, possibly covered in a wildflower meadow, to ensure that every bit of land used to produce all human food is also a wild, biodiverse environment for nature. In theory, a huge agricultural building, with a pitched green roof, built on a plot of flat land, would provide more biodiverse land than if that land didn’t have a building on it at all, as its sloping ‘meadow’ roof would have a higher surface area than the original flat land.
Natural Humanists recognise that huge high-rise buildings, for land-efficient housing, aeroponic agriculture, or for schools, offices or manufacturing, could, in theory, be built anywhere, if they had solid foundations, particularly if deep excavation, or other techniques, were used to ensure their stability[xxiii].
They recognise that, in theory, any excavated material could be used to create construction materials for the building, and any excavated soil, which is itself an important wild habitat for subterranean wildlife and those species that feed on them, could be re-sited elsewhere, on top of flat land, that’s possibly rocky, sandy or has low-biodiversity for some other reason.
This could be placed in ‘mounds’ or artificial hills, carefully planned and shaped by Artificial Intelligence so that they look natural, and actually increase the surface area of the land on which they’re deposited, allowing them to provide a habitat for trees, plants, fungi and algae, and those species that live in or feed on them, without interfering with water drainage or causing flooding elsewhere, or damaging biodiversity within the excavated soil, or within the soil on which it’s deposited.
Natural Humanists recognise that local or national planning regulations, and legally-enforced building-standards and codes, would, in most parts of the world, not permit such extremely large buildings which make the most efficient use of the planet’s land and natural resources, and would also not allow high-rise buildings, of 10 to 100 storeys high, in most, if not all locations, and wouldn’t allow homes without traditional windows, or with small efficiently-planned rooms, or buildings where some rooms and facilities are communal, to make super-efficient use of space, and to allow residents to socialise.
They believe strongly, however, that all governments, and all local authorities, should be encouraged to permit Natural Humanists an exclusion to these usual regulations, to allow them to freely practice their strong ‘religious’ beliefs, and to construct such highly-efficient buildings, or, ideally, that they should consider changing their regulations to acknowledge the huge benefits to all human beings, to the planet, and to all natural species of wildlife, of everybody making such responsible choices when planning any type of construction, so that all species which inhabit this planet, can return to sharing it fairly, just as they, and all human beings have, for most of human existence.
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References
[i] Worldometer. “World Population”. 9 June 2025. worldometers.info. 9 June 2025. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
[ii] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[iii] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[iv] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[v] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[vi] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[vii] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[viii] Timmons, D. R.; Burwell, R. E.; Holt, R. F. “Nitrogen and phosphorus losses in surface runoff from agricultural land as influenced by placement of broadcast fertilizer”. Water Resources Research. 9 (3) (20 June 1973): 658–667. Bibcode:1973WRR…..9..658T. doi:10.1029/WR009i003p00658 – via CrossRef. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/WR009i003p00658. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-runoff-65
[ix] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[x] Despommier, D. (2008). “Vertical Farm Essay I”. verticalfarm.com. Retrieved 26 June 2009. http://www.verticalfarm.com/?page_id=36. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-54
[xi] Discovery Channel. “Vertical Farm Video”. 23 April 2009. Discovery Channel. Archived from the original. https://web.archive.org/web/20090510091346/http:/watch.discoverychannel.ca/daily-planet/april-2009/daily-planet-april-23-2009/#clip164926. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-55
[xii] Kagel, Lisa. “Food Insecurity Explained: Causes, Effects & Solutions”. technoserve.org. 29 May 2025. https://www.technoserve.org/blog/food-insecurity-explained/
[xiii] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[xiv] Ford, Will. “Here’s The Best Color Light For Plant Growth And Why”. Oct. 1 2023. housedigest.com. 3 June 2025. https://www.housedigest.com/1405646/plant-garden-colored-light-colors-affect-growth/
[xv] Ford, Will. “Here’s The Best Color Light For Plant Growth And Why”. Oct. 1 2023. housedigest.com. 3 June 2025. https://www.housedigest.com/1405646/plant-garden-colored-light-colors-affect-growth/
[xvi] Wikipedia contributors. “Vertical farming.” 25 May 2025. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
[xvii] TreeHugger. “Landmark study shows how to change the building sector from a major carbon emitter to a major carbon sink”. 8 December 2019. treehugger.com. 6 June 2025. https://www.treehugger.com/study-shows-how-to-change-building-sector-to-cut-carbon-4854259. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building#cite_note-:2-20
[xviii] The Constructor. “Green Roofs and Living Walls: An Overview of Benefits and Installation”. theconstructor.org. 3 June 2025. https://theconstructor.org/sustainability/green-roofs-and-living-walls-an-overview-of-benefits-and-installation/571495/
[xix] Despommier, Dickson. “The Rise of Vertical Farms”. Scientific American. 301 (5) (November 2009): 60–67. Bibcode:2009SciAm.301e..80D. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1109-80. ISSN 0036-8733. PMID 19873908. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-:8-2
[xx] The Plant. “About The Plant”. The Plant. Archived from the original. https://web.archive.org/web/20111204102733/http:/www.plantchicago.com/about-the-plant/. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-46
[xxi] Despommier, Dickson. “The Rise of Vertical Farms”. Scientific American. 301 (5) (November 2009): 60–67. Bibcode:2009SciAm.301e..80D. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1109-80. ISSN 0036-8733. PMID 19873908. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-sciam-45
[xxii] Chesterfield Business News. “Plenty Opens World’s First Farm To Grow Indoor, Vertically Farmed Berries At Scale in Chesterfield, Virginia”. 24 September 2024. chesterfieldbusinessnews.com. 3 November 2024. https://chesterfieldbusinessnews.com/2024/plenty-opens-worlds-first-farm-to-grow-indoor-vertically-farmed-berries-at-scale-in-chesterfield-virginia/. Cited on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#cite_note-48
[xxiii] Watkins, Jennie. “Why are skyscrapers so tall?”. Updated 27 June 2024. ncesc.com. 27 May 2025. http://www.ncesc.com/geographic-faq/why-are-skyscrapers-so-tall/