Speaking to Alex Poltorak about his company, The Urban Canopy, is a challenge. It’s certainly not conventional. In many ways a product that allows people to grow produce anywhere is nothing new. Being an engineer, you can see that the Urban Canopy goes well beyond what you might expect. It’s modular. It takes advantage of plants in each stage of their development. It’s designed to grow up and out. It’s very smart. It’s also easy to explain until you start to think about the Urban Canopy vision.

Alex breaks out a network of eaters, growers and composters and challenges us to redefine the city as an agriculture-ready space. We get sun. We get rain. We consume. We produce useful waste. Can we coordinate everything so that we can feed off of each other? His first step is developing a system for wheat grass. Growing it and getting it to the right juice bars. Using their compost to grow more. It’s pretty simple. He’s an idea guy and he has a good idea. It’s facebook for food. Your roof is a field that Alex will farm He might even pay you to use it. Check out the Kickstarter. He’s got 10 days to go.