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How to convince your friends vertical farming is the next big thing

79 points by giltleaf 11y ago

epalmer 11y ago
Page must be dying from Hacker News hits ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED For what it is worth I have been casually reading about vertical farming and think this may be a very valuable technique to feed more people with less resources. I'm looking forward to reading this blog post when it is accessible.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  It's up for me, try again. In disagreement with the posts above -- I think innovation in food production is possible, neccessary, and looks like it is underway.
  - ewzimm 11y ago
    Where I live, the average farm loses money every year. The only reason farming exists in its current form in this area is because of government subsidies. There are big lobbying groups to make sure that specific methods are paid for by taxes, even if they aren't efficient. Also, the average age of farmers is over 60, so they are extremely unlikely to try innovative methods. Only once the current generation dies off will there be any major changes, because right now everything is prescribed and paid for.
- thesteamboat 11y ago
  I was able to click through, and also the same content (save for a few pictures) is available in pdf form [0]. As someone else who has been casually interested in vertical farming, I was pretty disappointed with this piece. It didn't give me any new information, and it didn't give any sense of progress that has been made or challenges to be overcome. It's really an introductory fluff piece for people unfamiliar with the concept. [0]: http://www.fdnearth.org/files/2012/09/Why-vertical-farms_Final.pdf http://www.fdnearth.org/files/2012/09/Why-vertical-farms_Fin...
jcfrei 11y ago
I doubt we are going to see a revolution in farming. The reason traditional farming is most likely still much cheaper than vertical farming is because of all the government's implicit and explicit subsidies. For example: For most farmers water is free so the 99% reduction in water usage won't reduce the price for the consumer in the aisle. I think if we wan't a real shift in agriculture (a shift towards more ecological vertical farming), we would require an actual market price for water. And most people (farmers and non-farmers) hate that idea.
- huangwei_chang 11y ago
  Totally agree. However, not all counties highly subsidy farming in all aspects. Maybe some revolution will happen outside the US?
- bpodgursky 11y ago
  Only in California and the Colorado basin is water allocation and pricing a real concern. The Midwest and south have water surplus and produce immensely more food than CA. So I don't think this has a significant impact.
  - saalweachter 11y ago
    Ding, ding. The math has to be done on a case by case basis. Why are all potatoes grown in Idaho? Because soil and climate conditions there are really good for potatoes. You can grow potatoes in Idaho and ship them to Kansas for less -- less land use, less effort, less energy-cost, less environmental impact -- than you can grow them locally. There are going to be some crops and some urban environments where vertical farming is the best option. There are going to be some where it is not.
- pxlpshr 11y ago
  Disagree. Water is "free" up until the point of not having water. California and Texas droughts have been very painful.
bencollier49 11y ago
"closed loop production cycle" - this sounds like a perpetual motion machine?
- mgberlin 11y ago
  I think they just mean that the waste materials can be used to provide inputs to the next production cycle. Obviously the loop is not close because there is energy coming in, and grown plants going out.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  That means that all the water and nutrients in the water are recycled as the system recirculates.
- john_b 11y ago
  "Closed loop" simply implies feedback from the outputs to the next inputs. It doesn't mean the system is "closed".
rdlecler1 11y ago
There was a lot of discussions about the benefits, and some discussion that was missed. However, vertical farming is still not cost effective compared to more traditional greenhouses. And that's for the highest value crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Commodity crops and animal agriculture are the biggest resource users in this system and vertical farming is no where close to finding a substitute for those. The cost of production will need to come down below the alternatives and that will be challenging, although not impossible in principle.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Why isn't it as cost effective? Is that just from a higher start-up cost or is it significantly more expensive to run in the long run? Seems like it would be cheaper (closed environment). Anecdote: I heard that peaches were grown in Greenhouses to avoid rot & bugs and it's been very helpful.
  - hanniabu 11y ago
    I work for a vertical farming company (Verticulture Farms) and high property values and utility costs are killers in higher populated areas.
  - minthd 11y ago
    Two major , expensive costs - the factory, the equipment, land,etc.very expensive - but maybe this can be solved. maybe. But there's also the required energy: "just to meet a year's U.S. wheat production with vertical farming would, for lighting alone, require EIGHT TIMES as much electricity as all U.S. utilities generate in an entire year"
    - giltleaf 11y ago
      There is no reason to grow wheat in a vertical farm. Vertical farms would be for specialty crops. Would love to see your source on that too. Additionally, not all vertical farming relies on artificial lighting.
hanniabu 11y ago
What's making this transition difficult is the economic viability. It only makes sense in densely populated areas but those areas also have ridiculous property values and higher utility costs. That makes it increasingly difficult for these farms because the margins in farming aren't that great. I work for a vertical farming company (Verticulture Farms) and we've been struggling to find a place where we can expandthat makes financial sense.
- adventured 11y ago
  That's certainly true today. I'm sure Verticulture Farms is in it for the long haul though. The dramatic improvements in output, quality, and water use will make vertical farming superior in nearly all cases within a few decades. It'll make sense everywhere traditional farming occurs, not just in densely populated areas. That's not the case today, but it will be the case tomorrow, given this is the first inning of a multi-trillion dollar global revolution in food production. People in the future will think it's crazy that we used to grow so much of our food outside.
  - hanniabu 11y ago
    That's definitely true. As the cost of LED fixtures go down and the cost of food goes up, it'll definitely becone profitable quickly and there will be a surge in appearances of vertical farms.
- VikingCoder 11y ago
  Would it help if building owners got tax cuts to let you run on their roofs?
hanniabu 11y ago
What's making this transition difficult is the economic viability. It only makes sense in densely populated areas but those areas also have ridiculous property values and higher utility costs. That makes it increasingly difficult for these farms because the margins in farming aren't that great. I work for a vertical farming company (Verticulture Farms) and we've been struggling to find a place where we can expandthat makes financial sense.
ernestipark 11y ago
Worth checking out - I'm an early adopter for the Grove aquaponics system which is similar in idea but meant for individual homes (http://grovelabs.io http://grovelabs.io). Not cost effective yet, but hoping they continue to grow and refine their research and process to a point that it will be in the near future.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  Yeah man, multitrophic systems are the future. Hydroponics is just a stepping stone.
logfromblammo 11y ago
A rational, fact-supported argument is not sufficient to convince some people of anything. If I want to convince all of my friends, I will also need an emotionally-loaded propaganda documentary with more anecdotal, scripted illustrations of the human impact on a handful of stereotypical everyman characters. I have been convinced for about 20 years that large-scale indoor farming will become cost-competitive with standard industrialized farming around 2040. The epic drought in California may have accelerated my estimate to 2035. We won't be at the tipping point until a profitable cornfield is replaced by a greenhouse-like structure with a roof 30m above ground level.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Exactly. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine about vertical farming. He's big into his food, cares about food quality. Anyway, I bring it up, he's not impressed, in fact far from it. The impression I got was that it ruined the emotional impact behind the origin of food. Instead of growing in fields, in natural time-honoured traditional way (I should mention at this point that my friend believed in buying organic, just to nip the pesticides/herbicides argument in the bud), we'd be replacing that with what amounted to growing in a lab. If you're going to convince anyone, beyond tech heads and those that only care about cost, you're going to need to address the story of food, its role in our culture. I strongly doubt it would get anywhere close to the mainstream without the type of emotionally-led marketing that logfromblammo suggests.
  - danielweber 11y ago
    Why do you need to "convince" anybody? If companies want to build urban farms, let them compete and we'll see what happens. My money says that if you are really hung up about the energy transport costs of food, you should just build an electric transport system into the city, from the farm outside the city. A lot of this research is very interesting for things like space colonies, so I pay attention, but on earth it's a solution in search of a problem.
    - verbin217 11y ago
minthd 11y ago
Let's not forget algae. Solazyme is already producing various food components for food companies, from algae, in highly efficient and dense factories, and at a competitive price.And i think with time it might be a cheap carbohydrates source. And those food components are much better than natural components - because you can tailor the exact chemical composition of them. And with technologies like molecular gastronomy, or making great meat substitutes out of protein(like beyond meat), food components could become the basis for a lot of food variety.
codingdave 11y ago
Many people are concerned about the economics of this, but in my mind, trying to scale food production is itself the problem. I know I sound over-idealistic, and usually am not well received when I ask this, but I'll ask anyway -- If every home had a room dedicated to vertical farming, instead a room for watching TV, what would that do for the problem?
- danielweber 11y ago
  What if every house had their own backyard steel furnace? Think of how much more steel we would produce!
  - codingdave 11y ago
    You do know that plants literally grow out of thin air, don't you? The nutrients pulled from the soil are like our nutrients - required, but not the main substance of the plants. Water is needed to transport the nutrients and support cell growth and structure, but most water input into traditional farming just ends up as run off. Much of the actual substance of a plant is pulled from the air. If you can optimize the water usage, and provide the nutrients, the rest of the inputs into plant growth are quite minimal.
- phkahler 11y ago
  >> If every home had a room dedicated to vertical farming.. Why bring it inside? Gardening is a thing and has been for a long time. It can be really cheap too.
  - codingdave 11y ago
    Because in urban environments, not everybody has an outside to use.
    - yongjik 11y ago
      In that case, proposing indoor farming is equivalent to asking people to give up precious urban space for gardening... and then plastering walls around it so that we can have indoor farming. I'm not sure we actually gain anything by this.
searine 11y ago
It will never, ever, be able to out compete Dirt + Sun.
- mikepurvis 11y ago
  That's my gut instinct— and there are so many secondary services which nature provides you for free out there, like pollination. And yet, the article does make some pretty compelling points, especially about year-round yield, continuous yield, and isolation from environmental factors like drought, pests, etc. What's actually most exciting to me is greater integration of food production directly into the places where people live and work. Why have a separate vertical farm when it could be the two floors above your company cafeteria, and the lettuce in your lunch literally never left the premises? _That_ is really exciting to me.
maliker 11y ago
Vertical farming is an energy nightmare. It requires at least 1000x more energy than conventional agriculture because you have to provide supplemental light for the plants to grow indoors. Others have addressed this: "... the light required to grow the 500 grammes of wheat that a loaf of bread contains would cost, at current prices, £9.82. (The current farm gate price for half a kilo of wheat is 6p.) That’s just lighting: no inputs, interest, rents, rates, or labour. Somehow this minor consideration – that plants need light to grow and that they aren’t going to get it except on the top storey – has been overlooked by the scheme’s supporters. I won’t bother to explain the environmental impacts." -- http://www.monbiot.com/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/ http://www.monbiot.com/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/
- mu_killnine 11y ago
  This is why you'll notice most existing vertical farms don't grow things like corn or soybeans. They grow microgreens. Organic-foodie pricing aside, I think it's largely because that's the only crop that really takes to this style of farming and can still make money. The aforementioned crops just need too much space and energy to work commercially.
  - hanniabu 11y ago
    That's true. Cross like corn and tomatoes already grow vertically so there's not as much that can be done about that as opposed to a leafy gran that is growing a foot or so in a 20ft room. It only makes sense to layer it there.
- mikepurvis 11y ago
  You lose out on density, but I do wonder about putting these vertical units around the outside of office towers somehow? So you get many of the advantages of isolation, but you also benefit from free natural light? It seems insane to harvest solar energy just to pump it back into grow lamps. I would be fine with sitting at an office tower "window seat" that looked out through 5 feet of agricultural activity.
  - 11y ago
exelius 11y ago
The problem here is that in many cases, you're replacing things that have historically been free (light, water, air) with things that are not free (LED lights, irrigation systems, exhaust/air circulators). The increase in complexity also incurs a lot of additional overhead costs. Modern "horizontal" farming is already largely automated; so vertical farming doesn't deliver any savings on that front. Don't get me wrong -- I am a fan of vertical farming and I think that it's an important technology for us to develop because we're going to eventually trash the planet and we need some way to grow food -- but there are way too many economic problems with it for it to be much more than a novelty right now. IMO the most promising near-term use case is marijuana - there are already regulatory reasons to incur most of the costs of vertical farming, so it's less of a disadvantage (not to mention that high-grade stuff has to be grown indoors to prevent cross-pollenation).
nsxwolf 11y ago
Let's build huge arrays of vertical farms on top of traditional farms!
ryanmarsh 11y ago
Take a look at pictures of actual vertical farms vs. artist concepts and compare their use of natural light and then tell me if this is truly as "sustainable" as they say. Growing things is more than getting the soil right. It's (for most plants) the use of chlorophyll to make sugars which (again for most plants) is harnessing the equivalent of sunlight. Aquaponics are definitely sustainable and just downright awesome and we should invest more in them, but without sunlight you're just running a power hungry "grow op".
- hanniabu 11y ago
  I'm working for aquaponic company Verticulture Farms and I couldn't agree with you more. Multitrophic systems are definitely the way of the future. Plants/fish/crustaceans, all grown organically and locally.
cjbenedikt 11y ago
Vertical farming: Another 'solution' that won't work http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/12/13/vertical-farming/ http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/12/13/vertical-farming/
mikepurvis 11y ago
_ ... there are no fertilizers needed. There are no pesticides needed. There is no chemical runoff. Even if you make a worst-case assumption that each farm will use synthetic nutrient solutions, these solutions are used in a closed, recirculating system with no chance for environmental contamination._ Can someone explain how this is so? What is the alternative to a "synthetic nutrient solution"?
- hanniabu 11y ago
  The alternative is natural nutrients from plants rather than lab created Burien which are essential chemicals. If you try a synthetic nutrient plant by itself you probably won't think anything is wrong. But if you taste it side by side from a natural source like nutrients from fish then the difference is mind blowing. The synthetic nutrients really do change taste for the worse and it makes me wonder if it has any affects on the body.
  - mikepurvis 11y ago
    I'm still not following. Are these "vertical farms" then aquaponics affairs, where the fish tank waste is what feeds the plants? Or is it like organics, where a crop like peas concentrates nitrogen from the air in order to fertilize something else?
    - hanniabu 11y ago
      Aquaponics is one closed loop option for acquiring organic nutrients for the plants. You can read more if you Google "organic vs synthetic nutrients" and click the first link by The Grow Scene. They explain it pretty well there and in only a few short paragraphs.
icameron 11y ago
I'm convinced after reading that. I knew about NASA researchers trying to grow lettuce crops with LEDs to support long missions in space even in the 80s. LEDs have come a long ways since then. I'm glad to see it happening today commercially. Quick and low growing plants like lettuce and greens are well suited for vertical farming. I haven't read specifically about it but I'm not as convinced something with a long growing cycle and tall plant such as corn or sugarcane is as feasible, so it will continue to be a regional crop where it's naturally supported. I'm just happy to see the innovation and full scale use of LED indoor growing!
fredkbloggs 11y ago
So instead of less expensive land outside cities, we should grow food on expensive land inside them. Ok. And instead of less expensive nonpotable water supplies, we should use expensive potable urban water supplies to irrigate it. Ok. And instead of 100% efficient sunlight to drive photosynthesis, we should use either 40% efficient fossil fuel derived electricity or 16% efficient PV derived electricity to do it. Ok. Also, instead of polluting creeks and rivers with agricultural runoff from farms, we should pollute creeks and rivers with agricultural runoff mixed in with urban sewage (sorry, there's no such thing as a "closed system"). Ok. And finally, instead of paying $2 for an organically-grown, sustainably-farmed head of lettuce at the farmers' market, we should pay $12 for a hydroponically-grown head of lettuce. This article contained zero analysis of economics. Comparisons made were with "other indoor growing methods", not with outdoor sunlight-powered methods. No analysis was undertaken to show that transportation costs make up the difference. No explanation was provided for the added burden on urban (potable!) water supplies. The electricity demands made by this method are obviously unmanageable, yet no solution to this problem was offered (I guess instead of polluting the planet with industrial ag, we pollute it by burning 10x as much coal?). The problem of waste is hand-waved away by calling the operation a "closed system"; nothing lasts forever, and eventually the materials used will have to be discarded, along with residues from the inorganic inputs. "Weather-related crop failures" are dismissed; one wonders where the author thinks urban water supplies and electricity for climate control come from (hint: outdoors!). If you want to improve the efficiency of farming, I'm all for it. You've got a scalable, sustainable way to use less water? Great, go implement it on an existing farm and put your competition out of business. But this is not that. It's a gimmick that is at best marginally economical in places with the world's highest real estate costs and customers willing to pay far above the market rate for gimmicky products. That is not a situation that describes most people on this planet. It's one thing to sell a few thousand heads of lettuce to stockbrokers in Singapore; it's another thing entirely to convince a billion Chinese people to leave their entire country fallow so that they can pay a month's income for one of those heads of lettuce while breathing air so heavily polluted by coal smoke that they drop dead at 25. Good luck with that.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  The reason for growing in the city is to reduce transportation cost and time.of it gets in the store the same day the plants were harvested then it increases freshness/nutritional value and it increases the shelf life. Growing indoors also allows for a greater control over the growing environment. You can grow any particular grow all year round with much less crop loss. This also eliminates the need for pesticides since you're closing off the plants from insects. Therfore, the "agricultural runoff"is definitely not the same as from an open farm. The only "runoff" is a handful of times a year (maybe 4ish) where the reservoirs are emptied and cleaned. Organically grown plants are GMO free and therefore need a lot more pesticides to keep it looking good. So if you want to pay the cheaper price for a mouth of chemical then that's on you. A lot of people aren't. I agree that the electricity usage is an issue but this is something that is being solved. Year by year we see lights getting more efficient and solar panels getting more efficient as well. When it comes to running out of farmable land and fresh water becoming more scarce and a growing population though, the cost of electricity is a worthwhile trade off in my opinion. You can't wait until the last minute to make the transition away away from traditional agriculture and into more future proof methodologies.
cousin_it 11y ago
It seems like making more land for horizontal farming (converting unusable land, reclaiming from the sea, etc.) should be way more cost-efficient. Heck, even growing stuff on boats would be more efficient than using skyscrapers, because of the free sunlight and water.
rikkus 11y ago
Just in case anyone, like me, read the headline and wanted to see the old 'Green Desk' feature on Brass Eye, I found it here: https://youtu.be/usTT3RuWu_g?t=4m44s https://youtu.be/usTT3RuWu_g?t=4m44s

79 points by giltleaf 11y ago

Page must be dying from Hacker News hits ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED For what it is worth I have been casually reading about vertical farming and think this may be a very valuable technique to feed more people with less resources. I'm looking forward to reading this blog post when it is accessible.

hellbanner 11y ago
It's up for me, try again. In disagreement with the posts above -- I think innovation in food production is possible, neccessary, and looks like it is underway.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  Where I live, the average farm loses money every year. The only reason farming exists in its current form in this area is because of government subsidies. There are big lobbying groups to make sure that specific methods are paid for by taxes, even if they aren't efficient. Also, the average age of farmers is over 60, so they are extremely unlikely to try innovative methods. Only once the current generation dies off will there be any major changes, because right now everything is prescribed and paid for.
thesteamboat 11y ago
I was able to click through, and also the same content (save for a few pictures) is available in pdf form [0]. As someone else who has been casually interested in vertical farming, I was pretty disappointed with this piece. It didn't give me any new information, and it didn't give any sense of progress that has been made or challenges to be overcome. It's really an introductory fluff piece for people unfamiliar with the concept. [0]: http://www.fdnearth.org/files/2012/09/Why-vertical-farms_Final.pdf http://www.fdnearth.org/files/2012/09/Why-vertical-farms_Fin...

jcfrei 11y ago

I doubt we are going to see a revolution in farming. The reason traditional farming is most likely still much cheaper than vertical farming is because of all the government's implicit and explicit subsidies. For example: For most farmers water is free so the 99% reduction in water usage won't reduce the price for the consumer in the aisle. I think if we wan't a real shift in agriculture (a shift towards more ecological vertical farming), we would require an actual market price for water. And most people (farmers and non-farmers) hate that idea.

huangwei_chang 11y ago
Totally agree. However, not all counties highly subsidy farming in all aspects. Maybe some revolution will happen outside the US?
bpodgursky 11y ago
Only in California and the Colorado basin is water allocation and pricing a real concern. The Midwest and south have water surplus and produce immensely more food than CA. So I don't think this has a significant impact.
- saalweachter 11y ago
  Ding, ding. The math has to be done on a case by case basis. Why are all potatoes grown in Idaho? Because soil and climate conditions there are really good for potatoes. You can grow potatoes in Idaho and ship them to Kansas for less -- less land use, less effort, less energy-cost, less environmental impact -- than you can grow them locally. There are going to be some crops and some urban environments where vertical farming is the best option. There are going to be some where it is not.
pxlpshr 11y ago
Disagree. Water is "free" up until the point of not having water. California and Texas droughts have been very painful.

bencollier49 11y ago

"closed loop production cycle" - this sounds like a perpetual motion machine?

mgberlin 11y ago
I think they just mean that the waste materials can be used to provide inputs to the next production cycle. Obviously the loop is not close because there is energy coming in, and grown plants going out.
hanniabu 11y ago
That means that all the water and nutrients in the water are recycled as the system recirculates.
john_b 11y ago
"Closed loop" simply implies feedback from the outputs to the next inputs. It doesn't mean the system is "closed".

rdlecler1 11y ago

There was a lot of discussions about the benefits, and some discussion that was missed. However, vertical farming is still not cost effective compared to more traditional greenhouses. And that's for the highest value crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Commodity crops and animal agriculture are the biggest resource users in this system and vertical farming is no where close to finding a substitute for those. The cost of production will need to come down below the alternatives and that will be challenging, although not impossible in principle.

hellbanner 11y ago
Why isn't it as cost effective? Is that just from a higher start-up cost or is it significantly more expensive to run in the long run? Seems like it would be cheaper (closed environment). Anecdote: I heard that peaches were grown in Greenhouses to avoid rot & bugs and it's been very helpful.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  I work for a vertical farming company (Verticulture Farms) and high property values and utility costs are killers in higher populated areas.
- minthd 11y ago
  Two major , expensive costs - the factory, the equipment, land,etc.very expensive - but maybe this can be solved. maybe. But there's also the required energy: "just to meet a year's U.S. wheat production with vertical farming would, for lighting alone, require EIGHT TIMES as much electricity as all U.S. utilities generate in an entire year"
  - giltleaf 11y ago
    There is no reason to grow wheat in a vertical farm. Vertical farms would be for specialty crops. Would love to see your source on that too. Additionally, not all vertical farming relies on artificial lighting.

hanniabu 11y ago

What's making this transition difficult is the economic viability. It only makes sense in densely populated areas but those areas also have ridiculous property values and higher utility costs. That makes it increasingly difficult for these farms because the margins in farming aren't that great. I work for a vertical farming company (Verticulture Farms) and we've been struggling to find a place where we can expandthat makes financial sense.

adventured 11y ago
That's certainly true today. I'm sure Verticulture Farms is in it for the long haul though. The dramatic improvements in output, quality, and water use will make vertical farming superior in nearly all cases within a few decades. It'll make sense everywhere traditional farming occurs, not just in densely populated areas. That's not the case today, but it will be the case tomorrow, given this is the first inning of a multi-trillion dollar global revolution in food production. People in the future will think it's crazy that we used to grow so much of our food outside.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  That's definitely true. As the cost of LED fixtures go down and the cost of food goes up, it'll definitely becone profitable quickly and there will be a surge in appearances of vertical farms.
VikingCoder 11y ago
Would it help if building owners got tax cuts to let you run on their roofs?

hanniabu 11y ago

ernestipark 11y ago

Worth checking out - I'm an early adopter for the Grove aquaponics system which is similar in idea but meant for individual homes (http://grovelabs.io http://grovelabs.io). Not cost effective yet, but hoping they continue to grow and refine their research and process to a point that it will be in the near future.

hanniabu 11y ago
Yeah man, multitrophic systems are the future. Hydroponics is just a stepping stone.

logfromblammo 11y ago

A rational, fact-supported argument is not sufficient to convince some people of anything. If I want to convince all of my friends, I will also need an emotionally-loaded propaganda documentary with more anecdotal, scripted illustrations of the human impact on a handful of stereotypical everyman characters. I have been convinced for about 20 years that large-scale indoor farming will become cost-competitive with standard industrialized farming around 2040. The epic drought in California may have accelerated my estimate to 2035. We won't be at the tipping point until a profitable cornfield is replaced by a greenhouse-like structure with a roof 30m above ground level.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
Exactly. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine about vertical farming. He's big into his food, cares about food quality. Anyway, I bring it up, he's not impressed, in fact far from it. The impression I got was that it ruined the emotional impact behind the origin of food. Instead of growing in fields, in natural time-honoured traditional way (I should mention at this point that my friend believed in buying organic, just to nip the pesticides/herbicides argument in the bud), we'd be replacing that with what amounted to growing in a lab. If you're going to convince anyone, beyond tech heads and those that only care about cost, you're going to need to address the story of food, its role in our culture. I strongly doubt it would get anywhere close to the mainstream without the type of emotionally-led marketing that logfromblammo suggests.
- danielweber 11y ago
  Why do you need to "convince" anybody? If companies want to build urban farms, let them compete and we'll see what happens. My money says that if you are really hung up about the energy transport costs of food, you should just build an electric transport system into the city, from the farm outside the city. A lot of this research is very interesting for things like space colonies, so I pay attention, but on earth it's a solution in search of a problem.
  - verbin217 11y ago

minthd 11y ago

Let's not forget algae. Solazyme is already producing various food components for food companies, from algae, in highly efficient and dense factories, and at a competitive price.And i think with time it might be a cheap carbohydrates source. And those food components are much better than natural components - because you can tailor the exact chemical composition of them. And with technologies like molecular gastronomy, or making great meat substitutes out of protein(like beyond meat), food components could become the basis for a lot of food variety.

codingdave 11y ago

Many people are concerned about the economics of this, but in my mind, trying to scale food production is itself the problem. I know I sound over-idealistic, and usually am not well received when I ask this, but I'll ask anyway -- If every home had a room dedicated to vertical farming, instead a room for watching TV, what would that do for the problem?

danielweber 11y ago
What if every house had their own backyard steel furnace? Think of how much more steel we would produce!
- codingdave 11y ago
  You do know that plants literally grow out of thin air, don't you? The nutrients pulled from the soil are like our nutrients - required, but not the main substance of the plants. Water is needed to transport the nutrients and support cell growth and structure, but most water input into traditional farming just ends up as run off. Much of the actual substance of a plant is pulled from the air. If you can optimize the water usage, and provide the nutrients, the rest of the inputs into plant growth are quite minimal.
phkahler 11y ago
>> If every home had a room dedicated to vertical farming.. Why bring it inside? Gardening is a thing and has been for a long time. It can be really cheap too.
- codingdave 11y ago
  Because in urban environments, not everybody has an outside to use.
  - yongjik 11y ago
    In that case, proposing indoor farming is equivalent to asking people to give up precious urban space for gardening... and then plastering walls around it so that we can have indoor farming. I'm not sure we actually gain anything by this.

searine 11y ago

It will never, ever, be able to out compete Dirt + Sun.

mikepurvis 11y ago
That's my gut instinct— and there are so many secondary services which nature provides you for free out there, like pollination. And yet, the article does make some pretty compelling points, especially about year-round yield, continuous yield, and isolation from environmental factors like drought, pests, etc. What's actually most exciting to me is greater integration of food production directly into the places where people live and work. Why have a separate vertical farm when it could be the two floors above your company cafeteria, and the lettuce in your lunch literally never left the premises? _That_ is really exciting to me.

maliker 11y ago

Vertical farming is an energy nightmare. It requires at least 1000x more energy than conventional agriculture because you have to provide supplemental light for the plants to grow indoors. Others have addressed this: "... the light required to grow the 500 grammes of wheat that a loaf of bread contains would cost, at current prices, £9.82. (The current farm gate price for half a kilo of wheat is 6p.) That’s just lighting: no inputs, interest, rents, rates, or labour. Somehow this minor consideration – that plants need light to grow and that they aren’t going to get it except on the top storey – has been overlooked by the scheme’s supporters. I won’t bother to explain the environmental impacts." -- http://www.monbiot.com/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/ http://www.monbiot.com/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/

mu_killnine 11y ago
This is why you'll notice most existing vertical farms don't grow things like corn or soybeans. They grow microgreens. Organic-foodie pricing aside, I think it's largely because that's the only crop that really takes to this style of farming and can still make money. The aforementioned crops just need too much space and energy to work commercially.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  That's true. Cross like corn and tomatoes already grow vertically so there's not as much that can be done about that as opposed to a leafy gran that is growing a foot or so in a 20ft room. It only makes sense to layer it there.
mikepurvis 11y ago
You lose out on density, but I do wonder about putting these vertical units around the outside of office towers somehow? So you get many of the advantages of isolation, but you also benefit from free natural light? It seems insane to harvest solar energy just to pump it back into grow lamps. I would be fine with sitting at an office tower "window seat" that looked out through 5 feet of agricultural activity.
- 11y ago

exelius 11y ago

The problem here is that in many cases, you're replacing things that have historically been free (light, water, air) with things that are not free (LED lights, irrigation systems, exhaust/air circulators). The increase in complexity also incurs a lot of additional overhead costs. Modern "horizontal" farming is already largely automated; so vertical farming doesn't deliver any savings on that front. Don't get me wrong -- I am a fan of vertical farming and I think that it's an important technology for us to develop because we're going to eventually trash the planet and we need some way to grow food -- but there are way too many economic problems with it for it to be much more than a novelty right now. IMO the most promising near-term use case is marijuana - there are already regulatory reasons to incur most of the costs of vertical farming, so it's less of a disadvantage (not to mention that high-grade stuff has to be grown indoors to prevent cross-pollenation).

nsxwolf 11y ago

Let's build huge arrays of vertical farms on top of traditional farms!

ryanmarsh 11y ago

Take a look at pictures of actual vertical farms vs. artist concepts and compare their use of natural light and then tell me if this is truly as "sustainable" as they say. Growing things is more than getting the soil right. It's (for most plants) the use of chlorophyll to make sugars which (again for most plants) is harnessing the equivalent of sunlight. Aquaponics are definitely sustainable and just downright awesome and we should invest more in them, but without sunlight you're just running a power hungry "grow op".

hanniabu 11y ago
I'm working for aquaponic company Verticulture Farms and I couldn't agree with you more. Multitrophic systems are definitely the way of the future. Plants/fish/crustaceans, all grown organically and locally.

cjbenedikt 11y ago

Vertical farming: Another 'solution' that won't work http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/12/13/vertical-farming/ http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/12/13/vertical-farming/

mikepurvis 11y ago

_ ... there are no fertilizers needed. There are no pesticides needed. There is no chemical runoff. Even if you make a worst-case assumption that each farm will use synthetic nutrient solutions, these solutions are used in a closed, recirculating system with no chance for environmental contamination._ Can someone explain how this is so? What is the alternative to a "synthetic nutrient solution"?

hanniabu 11y ago
The alternative is natural nutrients from plants rather than lab created Burien which are essential chemicals. If you try a synthetic nutrient plant by itself you probably won't think anything is wrong. But if you taste it side by side from a natural source like nutrients from fish then the difference is mind blowing. The synthetic nutrients really do change taste for the worse and it makes me wonder if it has any affects on the body.
- mikepurvis 11y ago
  I'm still not following. Are these "vertical farms" then aquaponics affairs, where the fish tank waste is what feeds the plants? Or is it like organics, where a crop like peas concentrates nitrogen from the air in order to fertilize something else?
  - hanniabu 11y ago
    Aquaponics is one closed loop option for acquiring organic nutrients for the plants. You can read more if you Google "organic vs synthetic nutrients" and click the first link by The Grow Scene. They explain it pretty well there and in only a few short paragraphs.

icameron 11y ago

I'm convinced after reading that. I knew about NASA researchers trying to grow lettuce crops with LEDs to support long missions in space even in the 80s. LEDs have come a long ways since then. I'm glad to see it happening today commercially. Quick and low growing plants like lettuce and greens are well suited for vertical farming. I haven't read specifically about it but I'm not as convinced something with a long growing cycle and tall plant such as corn or sugarcane is as feasible, so it will continue to be a regional crop where it's naturally supported. I'm just happy to see the innovation and full scale use of LED indoor growing!

fredkbloggs 11y ago

So instead of less expensive land outside cities, we should grow food on expensive land inside them. Ok. And instead of less expensive nonpotable water supplies, we should use expensive potable urban water supplies to irrigate it. Ok. And instead of 100% efficient sunlight to drive photosynthesis, we should use either 40% efficient fossil fuel derived electricity or 16% efficient PV derived electricity to do it. Ok. Also, instead of polluting creeks and rivers with agricultural runoff from farms, we should pollute creeks and rivers with agricultural runoff mixed in with urban sewage (sorry, there's no such thing as a "closed system"). Ok. And finally, instead of paying $2 for an organically-grown, sustainably-farmed head of lettuce at the farmers' market, we should pay $12 for a hydroponically-grown head of lettuce. This article contained zero analysis of economics. Comparisons made were with "other indoor growing methods", not with outdoor sunlight-powered methods. No analysis was undertaken to show that transportation costs make up the difference. No explanation was provided for the added burden on urban (potable!) water supplies. The electricity demands made by this method are obviously unmanageable, yet no solution to this problem was offered (I guess instead of polluting the planet with industrial ag, we pollute it by burning 10x as much coal?). The problem of waste is hand-waved away by calling the operation a "closed system"; nothing lasts forever, and eventually the materials used will have to be discarded, along with residues from the inorganic inputs. "Weather-related crop failures" are dismissed; one wonders where the author thinks urban water supplies and electricity for climate control come from (hint: outdoors!). If you want to improve the efficiency of farming, I'm all for it. You've got a scalable, sustainable way to use less water? Great, go implement it on an existing farm and put your competition out of business. But this is not that. It's a gimmick that is at best marginally economical in places with the world's highest real estate costs and customers willing to pay far above the market rate for gimmicky products. That is not a situation that describes most people on this planet. It's one thing to sell a few thousand heads of lettuce to stockbrokers in Singapore; it's another thing entirely to convince a billion Chinese people to leave their entire country fallow so that they can pay a month's income for one of those heads of lettuce while breathing air so heavily polluted by coal smoke that they drop dead at 25. Good luck with that.

hanniabu 11y ago
The reason for growing in the city is to reduce transportation cost and time.of it gets in the store the same day the plants were harvested then it increases freshness/nutritional value and it increases the shelf life. Growing indoors also allows for a greater control over the growing environment. You can grow any particular grow all year round with much less crop loss. This also eliminates the need for pesticides since you're closing off the plants from insects. Therfore, the "agricultural runoff"is definitely not the same as from an open farm. The only "runoff" is a handful of times a year (maybe 4ish) where the reservoirs are emptied and cleaned. Organically grown plants are GMO free and therefore need a lot more pesticides to keep it looking good. So if you want to pay the cheaper price for a mouth of chemical then that's on you. A lot of people aren't. I agree that the electricity usage is an issue but this is something that is being solved. Year by year we see lights getting more efficient and solar panels getting more efficient as well. When it comes to running out of farmable land and fresh water becoming more scarce and a growing population though, the cost of electricity is a worthwhile trade off in my opinion. You can't wait until the last minute to make the transition away away from traditional agriculture and into more future proof methodologies.

cousin_it 11y ago

It seems like making more land for horizontal farming (converting unusable land, reclaiming from the sea, etc.) should be way more cost-efficient. Heck, even growing stuff on boats would be more efficient than using skyscrapers, because of the free sunlight and water.

rikkus 11y ago

Just in case anyone, like me, read the headline and wanted to see the old 'Green Desk' feature on Brass Eye, I found it here: https://youtu.be/usTT3RuWu_g?t=4m44s https://youtu.be/usTT3RuWu_g?t=4m44s