I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming.<p>You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients built in.<p>Instead of growing cabbage in prime real estate in Copenhagen, why don't we invest in Africa, give them some huge machines and then buy their produce?
Vertical farms don't feed people. They are basically a solution to just in time delivery for restaurants and nothing else.<p>all They grow are great salad crops. Thats about it. If you're going holistic, you can farm fish at the same time. But that introduces a load of complications.<p>Look, if you want to make the world a better place you need to:<p>1) come up with a simple system that can create good quality soil (think Terra preta, but different blends for different regions of the world)<p>2) make a multch that is cheap, safe and sustainable, so normal farmers can reduce water loss<p>3) create a cheap fast robot that can remove weeds<p>4) same again but for pests.<p>5) make a system of payments that allows both mixed crops (ie fruit/lumber/nuts) as well as livestock and arable.<p>Out of all of them 5 is the hardest. Its also the one that will have the biggest impact on climate (mixed land holds the most water, regulates heat and captures the most carbon, it also can have the lowest yield.)
Disclaimer: I've grown tomatoes, strawberries and weed indoors with artificial lighting.<p>As long as there is no shocking event like global drought or famine I do not think vertical farming or indoor farming will be a norm anytime soon as it takes massive, massive amount of energy/capital.<p>That being said, the moment we figure out using fusion energy, conventional farming will most probably vanish.<p>Also R&D on agriculture robots is a nice side perk, there is only so much to automate in agriculture & horticulture.
Also see previous recent discussion of indoor/vertical farming (2017) - (1) and (2).<p>As discussed on that thread, vertical/indoor farming is great for leafy greens (mainly water but but not much other nutrients or carbon), but much harder for other plants.<p>See this video [3] - "Why Vertical Farming Won't Save the Planet: Bruce Bugbee, Utah State University Department of Plants, Soils and Climate, has studied plant growth in controlled environments for most of his career. Here he presents the results of his analysis of the environmental effects of Vertical Farming/Indoor Agriculture (September 2015)".<p>A copy of the slides can be downloaded here (the link shown on the youtube page is dead - correct link[4]).<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809841" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809841</a>
[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347288" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347288</a>
[3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw</a>
[4] <a href="https://cpl.usu.edu/htm/research/publication=15787" rel="nofollow">https://cpl.usu.edu/htm/research/publication=15787</a>
After the success of vacuum trains, underground superhighways, solar roadways and rocket travel, I guess this is the next logical step? At least you have something to sink our money into, rinse and repeat. Maybe even involve some EU green & eco funds.
I've always been a fan of those projects but it's clear they've now mostly turned to greenporn.<p>For this specific project: nothing makes sense. The farm is operated by "Nordic Harvest", with claims that it can produce <i></i>200 tons<i></i> of products in 2021 on a 7000 sqm footprint. The products would be fresh herbs and salads (the website only displays fresh herbs). So the total output of <i>herbs</i> on year 1 would be more than the equivalent surface of beetroot, one of the heaviest products. The site says the farm uses "no fertilizer" then comes to explain than they only use "natural fertilizer". The entire thing looks like a byproduct of the windmill industry, which is crumbling because of intermittent surplus of cheap electricity. All details on <a href="https://www.nordicharvest.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nordicharvest.com/</a><p>This reminds me of for urban farming in Paris a couple years ago, where I witnessed most "startup farms" from inception to failure: it's a perfect PR choreography. Some company builds a "farm" on its roof (with bee hives), advertises it as a totem of some vacant post-carbon strategy, collects fiscal incentives, then the farm never gets to see its 3rd year because it's so impossibly hard to even dream of reaching profitability or large-scale production. In Paris, the "largest farm in the world" is twice the size of this dutch "world largest" and actually operated by Unibail Westfield (and produces barely anything): <a href="https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-urban-farm-rooftop-at-parix-expo-porte-de-versailles" rel="nofollow">https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-u...</a><p>There are exceptions in urban farming (Lufa in Montreal, some sites in Singapore) but the PR pressure and laziness of journalist coverage is ruining it from the inside.
I wonder if this will eventually lead to even more efficiency (less people involved in per output). Vertical farms lend themselves much more to standardization than conventional ones imo (many small machines instead of few big ones). If all the often-failing parts could be built in a way that they can be replaced automatically I can imagine a giant farm being run by a single guy who's main task is receiving replacement parts and sometimes untangling messes the bots don't know how to manage.<p>The other big benefit of being independent from environmental factors might also come in handy in space or as a cheaper alternative to fighting climate change.
Totally agree with Barrin92; the dollars don't stack up.
Ballpark estimate here, I've tried this with several crops and its similar
Hard comparing field farming and tower-farming but here in NZ good level farmland is ~NZ$40000 Hectare Ha (2.47 acres), most farms >300 Ha. Equipment, fences and buildings are NZ$2M+, so that makes it nearly $47k Ha, round up to $50k Ha to be safer. So you could say their infrastructure cost is $10000/Ha.<p>But farms don't have to purchase light! Lighting costs for farming $0, for 100% artificial light NZ$1.90 per harvested Kg.<p>Current production costs for e.g. wheat $2500 Ha (seed, tillage, weed-control, harvest). Wheat NZ has world record of ~17t Ha, but all of this is a lot easier (cheaper) when you can move large machines freely. Wind is also an advantage in strengthening plant stems.<p>A farming tower needs greater strength than a residential building as there are live loads like harvesting equipment and a lot of 'soil' media and/or water if fully hydroponic. So I'll use costs for a concrete multilevel parking building which is going to be at least $2200 m² (plus lighting, HVAC and fitout - not in calc).<p>So, say your tower floorplate is 1000m², and taller than residential for extra HVAC and machine space. Assume you buy farmland at $45k Ha and build 10 floors (1000m²/floor), and prob. end with ~700m² growing space per floor, means you need another three floors to get you up to a 1 Ha growing area,<p>: so 13 1000m² floors at $2200m² = $28.6M / $50k = 570 times.<p>Plus lighting at $1.90 per kg of harvestable product - which for wheat at 17t/Ha would be $32000 per crop cycle.
For all the anti-vertical farmers out there with a highly USA-centric view, consider that the Netherlands (the world leader in indoor agriculture aka 2nd largest exporter of vegetables in the world [1]) is investing in vertical farming and research into it. "This won't work in the US therefore it won't work anywhere in the world" is a very limited view. New York, Japan, Singapore and other regions and countries have very good reasons to invest in it [2].
Not every country has the space or disregard for greenhouse gases.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farming-feed-the-world/a-47105412" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farm...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-construction-on-europes-first-commercial-vertical-farm" rel="nofollow">https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-constr...</a>
What happens to the soil (or growth medium) over time? Soil is a living system, pretty much an organism unto itself. You farm the soil and the soil grows the plants.
Is this going to be true then?<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ</a>
Vertical farming techniques make a lot of sense ... on Mars.<p>Maybe after one or two of these players go bankrupt, Elon Musk will acquihire the technology.
If they are able to produce a Rucola/Rocket, Baby Spinat or Lacusta salad cleaned and packaged for less than 200 kr/kg (27 euros), they will be making significant amount of money. (or anyone else who does it for that matter)