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Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

278 points by Osiris30 6y ago

bigbubba 6y ago
Industrial automation meets hydroponics.
Barrin92 6y ago
I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. 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. 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?
- rory_isAdonk 6y ago
  Feels like one of those new industry starting up presuming that carbon will have a dramatic effect on the market and policy.
- optimiz3 6y ago
  Food sovereignty is a thing - an open air farm in Africa has geopolitical and weather risks. Not to mention the shipping carbon footprint and freshness issues.
  - achow 6y ago
    Places like Middle East, Singapore and also USA majority of foods are being imported anyway.
    - mminer237 6y ago
      The US produces more food than any other country except China. It imports only a small portion of its food. https://www.wlj.net/top_headlines/americans-consume-mostly-u-s--made-food-produce/article_a76f95f0-5857-11e8-8922-47f84163101f.html https://www.wlj.net/top_headlines/americans-consume-mostly-u...
- AndrewDucker 6y ago
  Far less water, and for places that don't have that much good farmland it's a game changer.
- simongray 6y ago
  > 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? Maybe due to things like increased CO2 contributions, poor quality control, and decreased food security? Anyway, Taastrup is not prime real estate in Copenhagen. It's one of the poorer Copenhagen suburbs.
- ahoka 6y ago
  Also why bother with all that waste just to produce something that has basically zero nutritional value?
  - matei88 6y ago
    thank you
  - Manheim 6y ago
    This is just the start, but as other commenters have pointed out in this thread this is not just about the nutrition you get from Lettuce and Kale in comparison to other farm products. It is about the reduction of the need for farmland, transport, packaging, water and the use of chemicals. All parts of the problematic stress we put on nature and the environment. The use of greens in human food consumtion is enormous, regardless of the nutrition value they have compared to meat. If we can reduce the "environmental footprint" this consumtion have, it is a win, and not a waste of resources. On the contrary, I would argue. And as I start off with; this is just the beginning of an interesting development. The road to a more sustainable future is paved with innovation and technology. It's amazing how far vertical farming has come already, in my view.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    Because lettuces and other greens are grown regardless. Is your argument that no one should grow those plants at all?
- Mashimo 6y ago
  I don't know if I would call Taastrup prime real estate :D I'm also sceptical if it will be sustainable. After all, someone needs to produce the solar panels, metals building construction etc. On the other hand taking water from Afrika might not be the best idea.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Same, but at the same time, it's preparing for a future where the borders and international shipping may be impossible, where overpopulation means we can no longer use land for farming, and where farmland becomes unusable or at least unpredictable due to climate change. Plus something about colonizing space. It's far future and dystopian, but not improbable. Anyway, it's not the most efficient way to grow food; I live in a country where they have tons of greenhouses. Also pretty energy intensive, but yields are great and predictable, meaning that despite being one of the smallest countries of the world, we're the second largest agricultural exporter in the world. Basically we do a lot with what we have. Which is also (for me) a bit unexpected given that most of the areas I've lived in and driven through is grass for cattle.
  - bumbada 6y ago
    It is not far future and it is not dystopian. Anyone that have lived in China or India knows how much people those places have. There is already a tremendous pressure from the food those countries demand on the world. Chinese fishing fleet just obliterates anywhere they go, and they are destroying the Amazon forest in Brazil and Argentina with soya(proteins for pigs) plantations and equatorial jungles for Palm Oil. Anything is inefficient at first, including agriculture itself. Wheat and corn grains were super small at first. At first, solar panels did cost hundreds of times more than what it does today. Technology will improve and the future will be better.
    - rat87 6y ago
      > Anyone that have lived in China or India knows how much people those places have. Both India's and China's population is expected to fall significantly, It's Nigeria where large growth is still expected. The pressure isn't necessarily so much from the people but from the appetite and trends and increase in spending money. Unless you invent really good fake pork and fake fish made of vegetable protein you can grow in vertical farms that won't necessarily help
- senkora 6y ago
  I imagine it would work quite nicely in Iceland, with abundant energy and little (any?) arable land. It’s arguably better than mining Bitcoin with that energy. You can also significantly decrease water use, which matters in places like the Middle East that may want to reduce their dependence on food imports, and that already use desalinization to get water. Singapore doesn’t have a lot of space but could also want to decrease its dependence on imports. You can eliminate the risk of crop failures from drought / pests / freezes, and grow crops year round with lots of light, so yields can be quite high. Local produce can be sold at a premium to high-class consumers, similar to the organic food industry. And thinking farther out, this is an enabling technology for space colonization, so there’s a lot of growth potential in this technology.
  - gardarh 6y ago
    Already exists: https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english . They are growing for the local market only.
    - Melting_Harps 6y ago
      > Already exists: https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english . They are growing for the local market only. Very cool!
- ranguna 6y ago
  Did you even read the article? Water consumption is 250 times less that typical agriculture flat fields. Also, instead of using 1 meter square to grow 1 meter square of crops, you can use the same space to grow 14x the amount of crops.
  - andi999 6y ago
    As far as I understand, water is not a sparse resource in Denmark (but might be an expensive one)
    - Manheim 6y ago
      Denmarks only source of fresh water comes from their ground water. They do not have water shortage, but still.
  - postingawayonhn 6y ago
    Actually more than 14x. Because you control the environment you can provide them with ideal conditions which should speed up the growth cycle.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Water consumtion is like the most frequently gamed statistics ever. People will count all the water that falls on the field of grass and call it 'water consumtion for raising cattle'. Without a proper breakdown into blue water, grey water and green water this number is not even worth discussing.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > 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? Do we really need a repeat of the supply chains breaking down again to answer this question? African farmers were dismayed when their bumper crops were rotting in their fields because they couldn't export the crops or even sell the excess locally [0]. Livestock farmers also saw this as well [1]. It's hard to imagine that people haven't learned the value of having a robust local food supply chain, which is the one thing that I had hoped we had learned after the shortages and panic buying created during the 1st wave of COVID. I agree that vertical farming has limitations, but it could be a useful adjunct to meet demand the typical soil based farming cannot deliver. Moreover, much like Holland's greenhouse farming the chances are most of it will be exported in exchange for other goods. Also, remember Denmark has a limited growing season that could in theory help them plan for larger scale operations, which they can partner with for Mars colonization as things develop in both sectors. > I imagine it would work quite nicely in Iceland, with abundant energy and little (any?) arable land. It’s arguably better than mining Bitcoin with that energy. Why not both? The excess heat from the mining could be used to have heated greenhouse/nurseries while still utilizing the excess heat and energy. This was working rather well in Canada [2]. 0: https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/ghana-farmers-lose-money-as-covid-19-disrupts-key-export-markets/ https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/ghana-fa... 1: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/10/covid-19-has-ruined-pig-farming-%E2%80%95-farmer/ https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/10/covid-19-has-ruined-pig-... 2: https://inhabitat.com/bitcoin-mining-powers-canadian-mans-innovative-aquaponics-system/ https://inhabitat.com/bitcoin-mining-powers-canadian-mans-in...
  - rat87 6y ago
    > It's hard to imagine that people haven't learned the value of having a robust local food supply chain, which is the one thing that I had hoped we had learned after the shortages and panic buying created during the 1st wave of COVID. This seems like a worst case scenario, and it still seems like an overblown issue. I would say its usually much easier to just import produce if your country is not good at it. Use large ships and regulate them to be more energy efficient then they are now. It seems like we need solutions to panic buying --- Bitcoin in general doesn't seem very useful, making use of the captured heat is cool and better then wasting it but wouldn't it be easier just to not mine bitcoun
- achow 6y ago
  Earth: 29% Land, 71% Ocean Land: 71% Habitable, 29% Not Agricultural: 2.3% of all habitable land Livestock: 8% of all habitable land Looking at the stats, your question is very valid. We can drastically increase food production by marginally decreasing land dedicated for livestock and/or utilizing unused habitable land. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/11/Global-land-use-graphic-800x506.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/11/Global-land-use-g...
  - fnord123 6y ago
    Those stats also do not indicate how much the agricultural land is being used to grow animal feed. In fact if a crop is grown but inadequate quality for selling for humans, it is sold at a massive discount as animal feed. Reducing the variability in crop yields, as vertical farming should do, should make the 2.3% more efficient. We need to be careful about how we reduce livestocks globally. Naively interfering in the market such that the price of meat goes up could be disastrous as Brazilian farmers could accelerate the slashing of rain forests to make way for more profitable livestock farming.
    - kitd 6y ago
      Those stats also do not indicate how much the agricultural land is being used to grow animal feed. I don't have links, sorry, but IIRC it's about 33% used for animal feed.
      - kitd 6y ago
        Replying to myself, in 2014 it was: 1. Feeding people - 55% 2. Feeding animals - 36% 3. Biofuels - 9% https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel...
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Much of the livestock land is steep or rocky. The same obstacles to drawing a plough across it present to building buildings on it. Unless you're prepared to invest a lot of energy flattening it.
- ploika 6y ago
  Just farming in sunny places is also expensive and complicated. It's also vulnerable to drought, flooding, frost damage, pests, blockades, tailbacks at ports etc. I'm lucky enough to live in one of the most food secure countries in the world, but not everyone is in the same position. There's value in having a food source near big population centres.
- user568439 6y ago
  - 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually almost always the case, to my knowledge - 365 days a year of efficient production - Good for the environment to save so much in transport - Independence from other countries. Very important for small ones like Denmark that wouldn't have alternative to planting on their own soil. To be honest, the only con I see is that this perfectly automated gardens produce much less tasty food because they are given the exact amount of water and minerals needed to generate the product, but the real soil somehow must add a lot of flavor, even if it's not relevant to produce the fruit, because I really feel a big difference of taste between hydroponic food and classic farming.
  - Darmody 6y ago
    - Price will go down in the future - Similar farms can be built on Mars. - Diversity of crops in places where it would be complicated otherwise
    - baq 6y ago
      > Similar farms can be built on Mars. I'm an Elon fanboi but please let's start with desertified populated regions first so we have time to build a Mars colony without having to deal with civil wars
      - Darmody 6y ago
        Both objectives can be worked on at the same time. I don't really like that argument. We could say "let's end hunger first then focus on computer games, or beer, or vacations, etc". Ending world hunger is way more important than those things but you can't expect we stop doing them to focus on something that is already being addressed but is very complex.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Ground is a super expensive component of farming in Western Europe. Investing in Africa adds transportation costs and with perishables a lot of tariffs and restrictions will apply that are much easier to solve on shorter distances. Finally, there are non-economic reasons such as independence for food production, water efficiency, energy efficiency (including transportation) and quality control. Personally I think that food should be grown as close to the point of consumption as feasible, if that's Africa for Europe then so be it but if it can be done closer then that's better.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  > why don't we invest in Africa, give them some huge machines and then buy their produce? Climate change will make most of Africa uninhabitable?
  - perfunctory 6y ago
    "If greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly reduced, part of the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region risks becoming uninhabitable before the year 2100." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Middle_E...
- bumbada 6y ago
  The answer is very simple: Food is what is called strategic interest for a given country. Food is essential for live, you have no food, you die. If you or your children starve you will pay anything for food. Society's stability depend of the supply and price of food. E.g It is said that "Arab's spring" was about "people wanting freedom". It was really about food being ultra expensive in the north of Africa and speculators hoarding most of the rice and cereal in the world so they could benefit from the situation. We have seen recently what happens when countries ignore strategic interests. US companies that made face mask and ventilators like 3M sent manufacturing overseas to places like China. When the Covid emergency broke, China did this: 1. China has higher priority to any other country. 2. If your country criticizes China(and the communist party CCP) in any way, you must censor them or there is no face mask for the people in your country. No censorship, no masks. 3. If necessary, China will nationalize factories. 4. The surplus will be sold to the highest bidder. China will send already paid cargo for higher bidders. 5. You praise China, even when the virus came from it. You demand no investigation. That was self inflicted damage done by the West ignoring strategy 101. You can not let other countries control your basic food supplies or anything strategic. Europe can not send most of their food by sea because the US has the biggest navy in the world. So if you do something they don't like, they just can block your supply chain and make food prices skyrocket and change governments so they become puppy States. In fact, one of the secrets of US' success was that it could expand from the East Coast to the West by land with no European interference.
  - rat87 6y ago
    > Food is essential for live, you have no food, you die. If you or your children starve you will pay anything for food. Society's stability depend of the supply and price of food. That doesn't mean your country has to grow it. A much better solution for individual food security is food stamps. If your country has problems with a temporary lack of food one of the easiest things to do is to import more and if nesacery subsidize it. Famines tend to come from broken economic and political systems like imperial UK in Ireland and communist USSR, they both refused to import more food during a famine and in fact exported a lot food
    - 6y ago
- Shivetya 6y ago
  My question is, we know they expect to be profitable by a set date, but what will their prices be per pound? Does part of their plan include asking for a premium ? Renewable energy will certainly spread to the shipping industry and that alone will increase the number of markets served. The key is opening these markets so farmers in Africa have more destinations for their goods as the pandemic has shown what happens when your existing market slows greatly.
- pm90 6y ago
  Food is absolutely the most important, foundational aspect of any nation. It is so fundamental, that countries will rather create stockpiles and let it rot rather than risk running even the remote chance that they will run out of food. When you run out of food... everything breaks down, quite literally. It is thus in every nations interest to be as self-sufficient in their food production as possible. This is a very welcome development. Currently, only countries blessed with large sizes and specifically large arable lands are even capable of being self sufficient in their food production. This kind of hyper localized food production might just be the answer for nations of the future that don't want their population or geo-political influence to be limited by their size. Additionally, climate change has the possibility of severely disrupting both the production and supply chains for food. Being able to grow food anywhere, without worrying about soil fertility, is incredible.
- ed_balls 6y ago
  For places like, say, UAE it could be national security issue (you are 9 meals away from a revolution). It's a great back up in case of natural disasters.
- cromwellian 6y ago
  I don’t think LED lights are the ultimate solution. They could use light pipes during the day when it’s sunny to route sunlight from outside and distribute it inside possible using fiber optics. Eg https://youtu.be/DN8GXTmR6RI https://youtu.be/DN8GXTmR6RI This is a passive system and would require little to no power.
  - lovemenot 6y ago
    Consider the ratio of growth area to exposed surface area. 14x in this case. It's a vertical farm to maximise this ratio. Light pipes may be slightly more efficient than PV in energy conversion during daylight hours, but they do not scale horizontally as the farm scales vertically. For this project in Denmark, the energy comes from abundant wind, not weak and intermittent sun.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      I think you should take into account that plants can differ enormously. Small plants that don't grow in tight grids get some fancy 14x multiplier but once you actually try to grow a space efficient plant like wheat it just doesn't work out. The crop is already maximizing exposure to the sun to an incredible degree. Vertical farming can't increase this "efficiency" other than by adding more layers which will always involve uneconomical artificial lighting. Growing easy plants... is easy. Not every plant is easy to grow in a vertical farm.
      - lovemenot 6y ago
        Thanks. I just learned something about crops. Personally, I like light pipe tecnology. But I still don't get it. If wheat is already maxised for land/light and cannot be improved then what could be the theoretical advantage to indoor growing of wheat partially under light pipes? Area/energy-wise the best it can ever grow indoors is surely no better than on the roof.
- 4gotunameagain 6y ago
  Another argument is that produce has to be packed unripe in a truck to come all the way to copenhagen from spain without spoiling, which results in a usually bland product.
- xondono 6y ago
  >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? I think you are not fully grasping the logistics of your plan. Most of Africa is pretty much landlocked, meaning shipping needs to happen by road (that do not exist today). This alone makes your plan more expensive than vertical farms. Logistics in the food industry is a very complicated mess, with timelines so tight that we need to hack the riping process by picking fruits early and have them ripe on route, which negatively affects the quality of the produce (and with that the price that the average consumer is willing to pay).
  - coldcode 6y ago
    Transport of perishables costs way more than growing them in the first place; so doing it locally is cheaper, less polluting and much fresher. Saying you could do it remotely is about as convincing as making ice in your house as opposed to shipping it from a cold winter halfway around the world.
    - xondono 6y ago
      Yep, exactly my point
- HALtheWise 6y ago
  Counterintuitively, I have previously been told that you can actually grow more than one square meter of plants with one square meter of solar panels. The reason for this is that LED lighting can be designed to produce exactly the frequencies plants actually absorb, and distributed optimally through the day. Current solar technology isn't sufficient to make that cheaper than regular farming for staple crops, but I can certainly imagine it getting there for anything that's grown in a greenhouse today.
  - snovv_crash 6y ago
    Regular solar panels are about 6x more efficient than the photosynthesis of all plants except sugar cane. LEDs reduce some of this headroom by not being 100% efficient, but if the system needs some heat anyways that isn't an issue.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    Exactly. One square meter of solar panels can provide enough energy for several meters of plants.
- dontTango 6y ago
  This is the criticism of farmers. I know a guy who made a fool of himself for becoming an enthusiast, starting a company promoting vertical farming, only to find out the Economics don't work. On a similar note I recommend engineers get Engineering jobs, not business jobs. The money is tempting, but you will never learn about specifications and quality metrics otherwise. (Note I'm not including programmers as engineers)
- swiley 6y ago
  Plants use two (they're probably fine with just one) specific wavelenghts of light, so if you're solar power is broadband you can be saving energy this way.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  Doing vertical farming on earth, lets us practice here, so we can do this on space colonies reliably later.
- brohee 6y ago
  It's a luxury product and I'm pretty sure their market is restaurants. Since freshly harvested just tastes better, now good restaurant must source produce locally so are limited by seasons. This opens the possibility of "farm" to plate under a few hours for what is out of season.
- saargrin 6y ago
  and how are you gonna ship fertilizers and ship out highly time sensitive produce from africa where theres no political stability and no roads,no qualified manpower and no law infrastructure? also ,do you think it makes much sense flying cabbage to Holland from africa?
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > 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? That's where some of Europe's fruit and veg comes from now, more every year. However, in the long run I would question how sustainable a trade that effectively amounts to transferring water from Africa to Europe is, especially as African domestic markets grow.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  I agree with you for the most part, but also do disagree. It's complicated. Like water consumption is absolutely far more efficient 10 to 100 times less water used per plant depending on the setup between outdoor to indoor hydroponics. The climate control factor is also a big plus. Sudden heat waves or cold snaps are not as big of a concern with indoor farming. Some places, protection from hail is a huge factor. Even just smoothing out the edges of harsh weather is a huge benefit. These are the tried, true, real world benefits that are both proven and economically efficient already in some small scale vertical farms along with large scale traditional farming plus with hydroponic farming. This doesn't even mention the year round, local supply of certain foods. However, the electricity issue is the obvious problem along with the artificial light itself. The lights themselves to properly grow plants are not cheap and I saw a study that on an industrial scale, they're also not that reliable (lots of replacements). I have my doubts about the long term nutritional factor of using artificial light. We are evolutionary developed for plants that process the sun for their different forms of photosynthesis. I'd trust plants raised on the light of a fusion reactor more (tongue in cheek, chill). I did read something where researchers are trying to breed certain crops to respond better to artificial light, but I don't know at what stage they're at with it. Wind energy is still not 100% reliable for obvious reasons and there's only a ~20% efficiency of solar right now on the commercial market (unless something has happened I don't know about). If you're aware of the conversation of energy, I doubt I need to really go into more of that. However, it's a good extra step forward for further market investment in renewables with essentially an extra market to purchase said products (still a win-win). Without being a party pooper, I still see vertical farming as having potential. All crops? Probably not, to be honest and serious. 25% at least of produce that's available in your average market? Absolutely. We're just not there yet to achieve that, but you have to start someone to work out the "at-scale" and commercial viability issues. This is all good steps forward as long as you see it as such. If you think it more than that, then you're going to get disappointed and miss the lessons that can be learned. Beating that dead horse, there are plenty of problems that need to be addressed. Plantagon comes to mind as to their failures, but that was a bit more money related due to not realizing the infrastructure requirements (plus, from the articles I read, I smell a bit of... corruption? con-artist? bullshit?). Respecting the problems at hand and trying to fix them is far better than just going, "We need to change everything to vertical farming now! You're a piece of shit if you think otherwise!" Which is kind of where a lot of these conversations and articles go. None of which is beneficial for anyone. You're idea of investing in Africa is generally the tried and true commercial agricultural method of expanding food supplies. Nothing wrong with it, as long as you don't go Belgium's King Leopold II about it. But I'm not 100% against diversifying food supplies at some sacrifice to efficiency both short and long range in time and distance. I think the pandemic shows how important it is to never have "one source" of anything. The logistics dangers never show up in the good times, but they can make the bad times really bad. I like the vertical farm idea due to the decentralized concept. There's pros and cons to the vertical farming movement. I don't believe we're at a point where a major portion of the food supply can come from it. I really think a decent portion (20%-30%) can come from it within the end of the 2020s with better economic efficiency than traditional farming. Beyond that, no one can really predict it without their personal biases playing a factor. Once we can shut up the fanboys and wannabe environmentalists who have bullshit degrees in nothing actually useful from spouting stupidity and diverting investments to con-artists, real progress can be made and some benefits can be seen relatively quickly. I want to double down on that statement, the over hype and fanboys do nothing good for any technology. Their rhetoric diverts investments from those who make real progress in a field to con-artist ponzi scheming assholes. The more emotionally charged something is, the more this happens.
- commonturtle 6y ago
  It takes time to make the economics favorable by incrementally improving the technology. Once indoor vertical farming does become favorable, it will have huge benefits over outsourcing food production to Africa or elsewhere. National security for one; it times of war no one can starve your population into submission by cutting off shipments of food into your country. Your crops are also more resilient to pestilence and disease if grown in a controlled indoor environment. All this makes it a worthwhile line of exploration, no?
- zarkov99 6y ago
  > 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? Perhaps because the Danes rather be self-sufficient with respect to food, than depend on the development and continued cooperation of a country in Africa? I personally have a deep love for the idea of mechanizing agriculture in a fully sustainable way to the point you could drop a few pods anywhere and provide healthy, nutritious and free food for any population, for free, forever. What a gift for our children that would be.
- industriousthou 6y ago
  I think this kind of thing is really only economical for niche products like micro greens and fancy lettuce with high markups. It can be grown under perfect conditions, then transported and used the same day it's harvested. So, pretty cool from a technical and culinary perspective, but it's never going to produce staple crops economically. It seems kind of silly to portray it as being particularly eco-friendly or as addressing concerns like food security.
Phenomenit 6y ago
Why is it only possible to grow leafy greens with hydroponics? Is it a because of the size of the actual plant?
- vkou 6y ago
  Two reasons. Leafy greens are easy to grow hydroponically because they grow quickly. The problem with them is that they have nearly zero calories. People invest money into growing them hydroponically because they don't keep, or transport well, which makes them incredibly expensive out-of-season. The high margins make it economical. Nobody's going to be growing rice hydroponically, for instance, because rice retails for 75 cents a pound.
- flukus 6y ago
  Size is the main thing, plants like corn haven't had much in the way of vertical constraints so until we adapt new shorter breeds of them you can only grow so much per cubic meter and the economics doesn't work out compared to an open field. There's also the economics of how much goes into the non edible parts of the plant, this is much lower in leafy greens. Aside from that they just don't keep as well as more robust crops, so they have to be a lot fresher.
- ttn 6y ago
  The main issue is providing enough lighting/energy rather than growth medium. Everything is possible to grow with hydroponics although it is a little tricky.
sgeisler 6y ago
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. 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.
foxhop 6y ago
over engineered.
KaiserPro 6y ago
Vertical farms don't feed people. They are basically a solution to just in time delivery for restaurants and nothing else. 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. Look, if you want to make the world a better place you need to: 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) 2) make a multch that is cheap, safe and sustainable, so normal farmers can reduce water loss 3) create a cheap fast robot that can remove weeds 4) same again but for pests. 5) make a system of payments that allows both mixed crops (ie fruit/lumber/nuts) as well as livestock and arable. 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.)
- rplnt 6y ago
  6) reduce waste, stop feeding meat instead of people
  - roebk 6y ago
    Ain't this the truth. It's an incredibly inefficient way to feed the human race. And to boot, there's fewer starving livestock then there are starving humans.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Northern Europeans and many steppe peoples exist largely because livestock can be raised on terrain that's not suitable for animal farming.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        Factory farming uses almost no land. The animals never leave the building or their cage.
      - esarbe 6y ago
Kosirich 6y ago
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)
seddin 6y ago
It is still more expensive than exploiting illegal immigrants in southern Spain.
ttn 6y ago
Disclaimer: I've grown tomatoes, strawberries and weed indoors with artificial lighting. 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. That being said, the moment we figure out using fusion energy, conventional farming will most probably vanish. Also R&D on agriculture robots is a nice side perk, there is only so much to automate in agriculture & horticulture.
- konschubert 6y ago
  Yep, it's all about cost of energy. The solar farm that powers a vertical farm will always take up more space than the vertical farm saves. We have a nice podcast episode about this, maybe this interests you: https://www.predictions-podcast.com/2020/03/29/vertical-farming-10-yearsr-or-1000-years-away/ https://www.predictions-podcast.com/2020/03/29/vertical-farm...
  - SamBam 6y ago
    I can't listen to your podcast right now, but solar panels are more efficient than photosynthesis, and you can produce the wavelength of light needed for plants by LEDs using a fraction of that power, so what makes you say that the solar farm that powers a vertical farm will always take up more space than the vertical farm saves?
    - konschubert 6y ago
      You're right, I was generalising a bit in my above comment. The wavelength - focusing argument actually comes up in the podcast and we agree it might possibly offer a way out of the energy trap. PS: Feel free to subscribe now to listen later ;)
- wil421 6y ago
  Someone claimed a while back most of these vertical farms would switch to growing weed once it became legal in the state(s) they have farms. I’m not sure if any other crop beside weed would turn a significant profit. You might be able to get a government contract to grow some other controlled substance and turn a small profit. The only other way it would work would be if it was a co-op owned by residents or subsidized by the local government.
tdelmas 6y ago
Are we in the matrix yet ?
markus_zhang 6y ago
Is this going to be true then? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ
TruthHurts44 6y ago
Good. Having the cities being food independent will be huge in putting the farmers in their place.
- dumbfoundded 6y ago
  Not really. 91M acres of corn is grown in the US annually. I don't see that being put indoors. It would be best to grow high calorie and protein rich food in indoor farms. I could imagine cell cultured meat or insect farms really disrupt farming. From a cost standpoint, vertical plant farms will have enormous difficulty competing with any outdoor farms.
dsego 6y ago
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.
- tpmx 6y ago
  In this case the money seems to come from e.g. the danish government VC fund Vækstfonden. There was a very similar play in Sweden that went bankrupt last year after consuming a lot of tax money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagon
  - tpmx 6y ago
    Amount of money raised by Plantagon is reported to be: 120 million SEK, or $14M. Most of this likely tax money in some form. Denmark: Please watch out.
pi-err 6y ago
I've always been a fan of those projects but it's clear they've now mostly turned to greenporn. For this specific project: nothing makes sense. The farm is operated by "Nordic Harvest", with claims that it can produce 200 tons 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 herbs 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 https://www.nordicharvest.com/ https://www.nordicharvest.com/ 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): https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-urban-farm-rooftop-at-parix-expo-porte-de-versailles https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-u... 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.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
Vertical farming techniques make a lot of sense ... on Mars. Maybe after one or two of these players go bankrupt, Elon Musk will acquihire the technology.
carapace 6y ago
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.
napier 6y ago
Converted multi-storey car parking structures and disused post-Covid office towers are the farms of the future.
- dblock 6y ago
  Anyone doing this in New York? I walk past the empty Hudson Yards every day.
Osiris30 6y ago
Also see previous recent discussion of indoor/vertical farming (2017) - (1) and (2). 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. 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)". A copy of the slides can be downloaded here (the link shown on the youtube page is dead - correct link[4]). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809841 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347288 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw [4] https://cpl.usu.edu/htm/research/publication=15787 https://cpl.usu.edu/htm/research/publication=15787
- deegles 6y ago
  What are some high-calorie/nutritional value plants that work well in vertical farming? Maybe if those were grown cheaply enough people would adapt their recipes to incorporate them.
LockAndLol 6y ago
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. [1]: https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farming-feed-the-world/a-47105412 https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farm... [2]: https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-construction-on-europes-first-commercial-vertical-farm https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-constr...
unearth3d 6y ago
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. But farms don't have to purchase light! Lighting costs for farming $0, for 100% artificial light NZ$1.90 per harvested Kg. 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. 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). 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, : so 13 1000m² floors at $2200m² = $28.6M / $50k = 570 times. Plus lighting at $1.90 per kg of harvestable product - which for wheat at 17t/Ha would be $32000 per crop cycle.

278 points by Osiris30 6y ago

Industrial automation meets hydroponics.

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. 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. 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?

rory_isAdonk 6y ago
Feels like one of those new industry starting up presuming that carbon will have a dramatic effect on the market and policy.
optimiz3 6y ago
Food sovereignty is a thing - an open air farm in Africa has geopolitical and weather risks. Not to mention the shipping carbon footprint and freshness issues.
- achow 6y ago
  Places like Middle East, Singapore and also USA majority of foods are being imported anyway.
  - mminer237 6y ago
    The US produces more food than any other country except China. It imports only a small portion of its food. https://www.wlj.net/top_headlines/americans-consume-mostly-u-s--made-food-produce/article_a76f95f0-5857-11e8-8922-47f84163101f.html https://www.wlj.net/top_headlines/americans-consume-mostly-u...
AndrewDucker 6y ago
Far less water, and for places that don't have that much good farmland it's a game changer.
simongray 6y ago
> 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? Maybe due to things like increased CO2 contributions, poor quality control, and decreased food security? Anyway, Taastrup is not prime real estate in Copenhagen. It's one of the poorer Copenhagen suburbs.
ahoka 6y ago
Also why bother with all that waste just to produce something that has basically zero nutritional value?
- matei88 6y ago
  thank you
- Manheim 6y ago
  This is just the start, but as other commenters have pointed out in this thread this is not just about the nutrition you get from Lettuce and Kale in comparison to other farm products. It is about the reduction of the need for farmland, transport, packaging, water and the use of chemicals. All parts of the problematic stress we put on nature and the environment. The use of greens in human food consumtion is enormous, regardless of the nutrition value they have compared to meat. If we can reduce the "environmental footprint" this consumtion have, it is a win, and not a waste of resources. On the contrary, I would argue. And as I start off with; this is just the beginning of an interesting development. The road to a more sustainable future is paved with innovation and technology. It's amazing how far vertical farming has come already, in my view.
- SamBam 6y ago
  Because lettuces and other greens are grown regardless. Is your argument that no one should grow those plants at all?
Mashimo 6y ago
I don't know if I would call Taastrup prime real estate :D I'm also sceptical if it will be sustainable. After all, someone needs to produce the solar panels, metals building construction etc. On the other hand taking water from Afrika might not be the best idea.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Same, but at the same time, it's preparing for a future where the borders and international shipping may be impossible, where overpopulation means we can no longer use land for farming, and where farmland becomes unusable or at least unpredictable due to climate change. Plus something about colonizing space. It's far future and dystopian, but not improbable. Anyway, it's not the most efficient way to grow food; I live in a country where they have tons of greenhouses. Also pretty energy intensive, but yields are great and predictable, meaning that despite being one of the smallest countries of the world, we're the second largest agricultural exporter in the world. Basically we do a lot with what we have. Which is also (for me) a bit unexpected given that most of the areas I've lived in and driven through is grass for cattle.
- bumbada 6y ago
  It is not far future and it is not dystopian. Anyone that have lived in China or India knows how much people those places have. There is already a tremendous pressure from the food those countries demand on the world. Chinese fishing fleet just obliterates anywhere they go, and they are destroying the Amazon forest in Brazil and Argentina with soya(proteins for pigs) plantations and equatorial jungles for Palm Oil. Anything is inefficient at first, including agriculture itself. Wheat and corn grains were super small at first. At first, solar panels did cost hundreds of times more than what it does today. Technology will improve and the future will be better.
  - rat87 6y ago
    > Anyone that have lived in China or India knows how much people those places have. Both India's and China's population is expected to fall significantly, It's Nigeria where large growth is still expected. The pressure isn't necessarily so much from the people but from the appetite and trends and increase in spending money. Unless you invent really good fake pork and fake fish made of vegetable protein you can grow in vertical farms that won't necessarily help
senkora 6y ago
I imagine it would work quite nicely in Iceland, with abundant energy and little (any?) arable land. It’s arguably better than mining Bitcoin with that energy. You can also significantly decrease water use, which matters in places like the Middle East that may want to reduce their dependence on food imports, and that already use desalinization to get water. Singapore doesn’t have a lot of space but could also want to decrease its dependence on imports. You can eliminate the risk of crop failures from drought / pests / freezes, and grow crops year round with lots of light, so yields can be quite high. Local produce can be sold at a premium to high-class consumers, similar to the organic food industry. And thinking farther out, this is an enabling technology for space colonization, so there’s a lot of growth potential in this technology.
- gardarh 6y ago
  Already exists: https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english . They are growing for the local market only.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > Already exists: https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english https://vaxafarm.is/pages/english . They are growing for the local market only. Very cool!
ranguna 6y ago
Did you even read the article? Water consumption is 250 times less that typical agriculture flat fields. Also, instead of using 1 meter square to grow 1 meter square of crops, you can use the same space to grow 14x the amount of crops.
- andi999 6y ago
  As far as I understand, water is not a sparse resource in Denmark (but might be an expensive one)
  - Manheim 6y ago
    Denmarks only source of fresh water comes from their ground water. They do not have water shortage, but still.
- postingawayonhn 6y ago
  Actually more than 14x. Because you control the environment you can provide them with ideal conditions which should speed up the growth cycle.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Water consumtion is like the most frequently gamed statistics ever. People will count all the water that falls on the field of grass and call it 'water consumtion for raising cattle'. Without a proper breakdown into blue water, grey water and green water this number is not even worth discussing.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> 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? Do we really need a repeat of the supply chains breaking down again to answer this question? African farmers were dismayed when their bumper crops were rotting in their fields because they couldn't export the crops or even sell the excess locally [0]. Livestock farmers also saw this as well [1]. It's hard to imagine that people haven't learned the value of having a robust local food supply chain, which is the one thing that I had hoped we had learned after the shortages and panic buying created during the 1st wave of COVID. I agree that vertical farming has limitations, but it could be a useful adjunct to meet demand the typical soil based farming cannot deliver. Moreover, much like Holland's greenhouse farming the chances are most of it will be exported in exchange for other goods. Also, remember Denmark has a limited growing season that could in theory help them plan for larger scale operations, which they can partner with for Mars colonization as things develop in both sectors. > I imagine it would work quite nicely in Iceland, with abundant energy and little (any?) arable land. It’s arguably better than mining Bitcoin with that energy. Why not both? The excess heat from the mining could be used to have heated greenhouse/nurseries while still utilizing the excess heat and energy. This was working rather well in Canada [2]. 0: https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/ghana-farmers-lose-money-as-covid-19-disrupts-key-export-markets/ https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/ghana-fa... 1: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/10/covid-19-has-ruined-pig-farming-%E2%80%95-farmer/ https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/10/covid-19-has-ruined-pig-... 2: https://inhabitat.com/bitcoin-mining-powers-canadian-mans-innovative-aquaponics-system/ https://inhabitat.com/bitcoin-mining-powers-canadian-mans-in...
- rat87 6y ago
  > It's hard to imagine that people haven't learned the value of having a robust local food supply chain, which is the one thing that I had hoped we had learned after the shortages and panic buying created during the 1st wave of COVID. This seems like a worst case scenario, and it still seems like an overblown issue. I would say its usually much easier to just import produce if your country is not good at it. Use large ships and regulate them to be more energy efficient then they are now. It seems like we need solutions to panic buying --- Bitcoin in general doesn't seem very useful, making use of the captured heat is cool and better then wasting it but wouldn't it be easier just to not mine bitcoun
achow 6y ago
Earth: 29% Land, 71% Ocean Land: 71% Habitable, 29% Not Agricultural: 2.3% of all habitable land Livestock: 8% of all habitable land Looking at the stats, your question is very valid. We can drastically increase food production by marginally decreasing land dedicated for livestock and/or utilizing unused habitable land. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/11/Global-land-use-graphic-800x506.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/11/Global-land-use-g...
- fnord123 6y ago
  Those stats also do not indicate how much the agricultural land is being used to grow animal feed. In fact if a crop is grown but inadequate quality for selling for humans, it is sold at a massive discount as animal feed. Reducing the variability in crop yields, as vertical farming should do, should make the 2.3% more efficient. We need to be careful about how we reduce livestocks globally. Naively interfering in the market such that the price of meat goes up could be disastrous as Brazilian farmers could accelerate the slashing of rain forests to make way for more profitable livestock farming.
  - kitd 6y ago
    Those stats also do not indicate how much the agricultural land is being used to grow animal feed. I don't have links, sorry, but IIRC it's about 33% used for animal feed.
    - kitd 6y ago
      Replying to myself, in 2014 it was: 1. Feeding people - 55% 2. Feeding animals - 36% 3. Biofuels - 9% https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel...
- pjc50 6y ago
  Much of the livestock land is steep or rocky. The same obstacles to drawing a plough across it present to building buildings on it. Unless you're prepared to invest a lot of energy flattening it.
ploika 6y ago
Just farming in sunny places is also expensive and complicated. It's also vulnerable to drought, flooding, frost damage, pests, blockades, tailbacks at ports etc. I'm lucky enough to live in one of the most food secure countries in the world, but not everyone is in the same position. There's value in having a food source near big population centres.
user568439 6y ago
- 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually almost always the case, to my knowledge - 365 days a year of efficient production - Good for the environment to save so much in transport - Independence from other countries. Very important for small ones like Denmark that wouldn't have alternative to planting on their own soil. To be honest, the only con I see is that this perfectly automated gardens produce much less tasty food because they are given the exact amount of water and minerals needed to generate the product, but the real soil somehow must add a lot of flavor, even if it's not relevant to produce the fruit, because I really feel a big difference of taste between hydroponic food and classic farming.
- Darmody 6y ago
  - Price will go down in the future - Similar farms can be built on Mars. - Diversity of crops in places where it would be complicated otherwise
  - baq 6y ago
    > Similar farms can be built on Mars. I'm an Elon fanboi but please let's start with desertified populated regions first so we have time to build a Mars colony without having to deal with civil wars
    - Darmody 6y ago
      Both objectives can be worked on at the same time. I don't really like that argument. We could say "let's end hunger first then focus on computer games, or beer, or vacations, etc". Ending world hunger is way more important than those things but you can't expect we stop doing them to focus on something that is already being addressed but is very complex.
jacquesm 6y ago
Ground is a super expensive component of farming in Western Europe. Investing in Africa adds transportation costs and with perishables a lot of tariffs and restrictions will apply that are much easier to solve on shorter distances. Finally, there are non-economic reasons such as independence for food production, water efficiency, energy efficiency (including transportation) and quality control. Personally I think that food should be grown as close to the point of consumption as feasible, if that's Africa for Europe then so be it but if it can be done closer then that's better.
perfunctory 6y ago
> why don't we invest in Africa, give them some huge machines and then buy their produce? Climate change will make most of Africa uninhabitable?
- perfunctory 6y ago
  "If greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly reduced, part of the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region risks becoming uninhabitable before the year 2100." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_the_Middle_E...
bumbada 6y ago
The answer is very simple: Food is what is called strategic interest for a given country. Food is essential for live, you have no food, you die. If you or your children starve you will pay anything for food. Society's stability depend of the supply and price of food. E.g It is said that "Arab's spring" was about "people wanting freedom". It was really about food being ultra expensive in the north of Africa and speculators hoarding most of the rice and cereal in the world so they could benefit from the situation. We have seen recently what happens when countries ignore strategic interests. US companies that made face mask and ventilators like 3M sent manufacturing overseas to places like China. When the Covid emergency broke, China did this: 1. China has higher priority to any other country. 2. If your country criticizes China(and the communist party CCP) in any way, you must censor them or there is no face mask for the people in your country. No censorship, no masks. 3. If necessary, China will nationalize factories. 4. The surplus will be sold to the highest bidder. China will send already paid cargo for higher bidders. 5. You praise China, even when the virus came from it. You demand no investigation. That was self inflicted damage done by the West ignoring strategy 101. You can not let other countries control your basic food supplies or anything strategic. Europe can not send most of their food by sea because the US has the biggest navy in the world. So if you do something they don't like, they just can block your supply chain and make food prices skyrocket and change governments so they become puppy States. In fact, one of the secrets of US' success was that it could expand from the East Coast to the West by land with no European interference.
- rat87 6y ago
  > Food is essential for live, you have no food, you die. If you or your children starve you will pay anything for food. Society's stability depend of the supply and price of food. That doesn't mean your country has to grow it. A much better solution for individual food security is food stamps. If your country has problems with a temporary lack of food one of the easiest things to do is to import more and if nesacery subsidize it. Famines tend to come from broken economic and political systems like imperial UK in Ireland and communist USSR, they both refused to import more food during a famine and in fact exported a lot food
  - 6y ago
Shivetya 6y ago
My question is, we know they expect to be profitable by a set date, but what will their prices be per pound? Does part of their plan include asking for a premium ? Renewable energy will certainly spread to the shipping industry and that alone will increase the number of markets served. The key is opening these markets so farmers in Africa have more destinations for their goods as the pandemic has shown what happens when your existing market slows greatly.
pm90 6y ago
Food is absolutely the most important, foundational aspect of any nation. It is so fundamental, that countries will rather create stockpiles and let it rot rather than risk running even the remote chance that they will run out of food. When you run out of food... everything breaks down, quite literally. It is thus in every nations interest to be as self-sufficient in their food production as possible. This is a very welcome development. Currently, only countries blessed with large sizes and specifically large arable lands are even capable of being self sufficient in their food production. This kind of hyper localized food production might just be the answer for nations of the future that don't want their population or geo-political influence to be limited by their size. Additionally, climate change has the possibility of severely disrupting both the production and supply chains for food. Being able to grow food anywhere, without worrying about soil fertility, is incredible.
ed_balls 6y ago
For places like, say, UAE it could be national security issue (you are 9 meals away from a revolution). It's a great back up in case of natural disasters.
cromwellian 6y ago
I don’t think LED lights are the ultimate solution. They could use light pipes during the day when it’s sunny to route sunlight from outside and distribute it inside possible using fiber optics. Eg https://youtu.be/DN8GXTmR6RI https://youtu.be/DN8GXTmR6RI This is a passive system and would require little to no power.
- lovemenot 6y ago
  Consider the ratio of growth area to exposed surface area. 14x in this case. It's a vertical farm to maximise this ratio. Light pipes may be slightly more efficient than PV in energy conversion during daylight hours, but they do not scale horizontally as the farm scales vertically. For this project in Denmark, the energy comes from abundant wind, not weak and intermittent sun.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I think you should take into account that plants can differ enormously. Small plants that don't grow in tight grids get some fancy 14x multiplier but once you actually try to grow a space efficient plant like wheat it just doesn't work out. The crop is already maximizing exposure to the sun to an incredible degree. Vertical farming can't increase this "efficiency" other than by adding more layers which will always involve uneconomical artificial lighting. Growing easy plants... is easy. Not every plant is easy to grow in a vertical farm.
    - lovemenot 6y ago
      Thanks. I just learned something about crops. Personally, I like light pipe tecnology. But I still don't get it. If wheat is already maxised for land/light and cannot be improved then what could be the theoretical advantage to indoor growing of wheat partially under light pipes? Area/energy-wise the best it can ever grow indoors is surely no better than on the roof.
4gotunameagain 6y ago
Another argument is that produce has to be packed unripe in a truck to come all the way to copenhagen from spain without spoiling, which results in a usually bland product.
xondono 6y ago
>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? I think you are not fully grasping the logistics of your plan. Most of Africa is pretty much landlocked, meaning shipping needs to happen by road (that do not exist today). This alone makes your plan more expensive than vertical farms. Logistics in the food industry is a very complicated mess, with timelines so tight that we need to hack the riping process by picking fruits early and have them ripe on route, which negatively affects the quality of the produce (and with that the price that the average consumer is willing to pay).
- coldcode 6y ago
  Transport of perishables costs way more than growing them in the first place; so doing it locally is cheaper, less polluting and much fresher. Saying you could do it remotely is about as convincing as making ice in your house as opposed to shipping it from a cold winter halfway around the world.
  - xondono 6y ago
    Yep, exactly my point
HALtheWise 6y ago
Counterintuitively, I have previously been told that you can actually grow more than one square meter of plants with one square meter of solar panels. The reason for this is that LED lighting can be designed to produce exactly the frequencies plants actually absorb, and distributed optimally through the day. Current solar technology isn't sufficient to make that cheaper than regular farming for staple crops, but I can certainly imagine it getting there for anything that's grown in a greenhouse today.
- snovv_crash 6y ago
  Regular solar panels are about 6x more efficient than the photosynthesis of all plants except sugar cane. LEDs reduce some of this headroom by not being 100% efficient, but if the system needs some heat anyways that isn't an issue.
- SamBam 6y ago
  Exactly. One square meter of solar panels can provide enough energy for several meters of plants.
dontTango 6y ago
This is the criticism of farmers. I know a guy who made a fool of himself for becoming an enthusiast, starting a company promoting vertical farming, only to find out the Economics don't work. On a similar note I recommend engineers get Engineering jobs, not business jobs. The money is tempting, but you will never learn about specifications and quality metrics otherwise. (Note I'm not including programmers as engineers)
swiley 6y ago
Plants use two (they're probably fine with just one) specific wavelenghts of light, so if you're solar power is broadband you can be saving energy this way.
jasonjayr 6y ago
Doing vertical farming on earth, lets us practice here, so we can do this on space colonies reliably later.
brohee 6y ago
It's a luxury product and I'm pretty sure their market is restaurants. Since freshly harvested just tastes better, now good restaurant must source produce locally so are limited by seasons. This opens the possibility of "farm" to plate under a few hours for what is out of season.
saargrin 6y ago
and how are you gonna ship fertilizers and ship out highly time sensitive produce from africa where theres no political stability and no roads,no qualified manpower and no law infrastructure? also ,do you think it makes much sense flying cabbage to Holland from africa?
rsynnott 6y ago
> 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? That's where some of Europe's fruit and veg comes from now, more every year. However, in the long run I would question how sustainable a trade that effectively amounts to transferring water from Africa to Europe is, especially as African domestic markets grow.
NoOneNew 6y ago
I agree with you for the most part, but also do disagree. It's complicated. Like water consumption is absolutely far more efficient 10 to 100 times less water used per plant depending on the setup between outdoor to indoor hydroponics. The climate control factor is also a big plus. Sudden heat waves or cold snaps are not as big of a concern with indoor farming. Some places, protection from hail is a huge factor. Even just smoothing out the edges of harsh weather is a huge benefit. These are the tried, true, real world benefits that are both proven and economically efficient already in some small scale vertical farms along with large scale traditional farming plus with hydroponic farming. This doesn't even mention the year round, local supply of certain foods. However, the electricity issue is the obvious problem along with the artificial light itself. The lights themselves to properly grow plants are not cheap and I saw a study that on an industrial scale, they're also not that reliable (lots of replacements). I have my doubts about the long term nutritional factor of using artificial light. We are evolutionary developed for plants that process the sun for their different forms of photosynthesis. I'd trust plants raised on the light of a fusion reactor more (tongue in cheek, chill). I did read something where researchers are trying to breed certain crops to respond better to artificial light, but I don't know at what stage they're at with it. Wind energy is still not 100% reliable for obvious reasons and there's only a ~20% efficiency of solar right now on the commercial market (unless something has happened I don't know about). If you're aware of the conversation of energy, I doubt I need to really go into more of that. However, it's a good extra step forward for further market investment in renewables with essentially an extra market to purchase said products (still a win-win). Without being a party pooper, I still see vertical farming as having potential. All crops? Probably not, to be honest and serious. 25% at least of produce that's available in your average market? Absolutely. We're just not there yet to achieve that, but you have to start someone to work out the "at-scale" and commercial viability issues. This is all good steps forward as long as you see it as such. If you think it more than that, then you're going to get disappointed and miss the lessons that can be learned. Beating that dead horse, there are plenty of problems that need to be addressed. Plantagon comes to mind as to their failures, but that was a bit more money related due to not realizing the infrastructure requirements (plus, from the articles I read, I smell a bit of... corruption? con-artist? bullshit?). Respecting the problems at hand and trying to fix them is far better than just going, "We need to change everything to vertical farming now! You're a piece of shit if you think otherwise!" Which is kind of where a lot of these conversations and articles go. None of which is beneficial for anyone. You're idea of investing in Africa is generally the tried and true commercial agricultural method of expanding food supplies. Nothing wrong with it, as long as you don't go Belgium's King Leopold II about it. But I'm not 100% against diversifying food supplies at some sacrifice to efficiency both short and long range in time and distance. I think the pandemic shows how important it is to never have "one source" of anything. The logistics dangers never show up in the good times, but they can make the bad times really bad. I like the vertical farm idea due to the decentralized concept. There's pros and cons to the vertical farming movement. I don't believe we're at a point where a major portion of the food supply can come from it. I really think a decent portion (20%-30%) can come from it within the end of the 2020s with better economic efficiency than traditional farming. Beyond that, no one can really predict it without their personal biases playing a factor. Once we can shut up the fanboys and wannabe environmentalists who have bullshit degrees in nothing actually useful from spouting stupidity and diverting investments to con-artists, real progress can be made and some benefits can be seen relatively quickly. I want to double down on that statement, the over hype and fanboys do nothing good for any technology. Their rhetoric diverts investments from those who make real progress in a field to con-artist ponzi scheming assholes. The more emotionally charged something is, the more this happens.
commonturtle 6y ago
It takes time to make the economics favorable by incrementally improving the technology. Once indoor vertical farming does become favorable, it will have huge benefits over outsourcing food production to Africa or elsewhere. National security for one; it times of war no one can starve your population into submission by cutting off shipments of food into your country. Your crops are also more resilient to pestilence and disease if grown in a controlled indoor environment. All this makes it a worthwhile line of exploration, no?
zarkov99 6y ago
> 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? Perhaps because the Danes rather be self-sufficient with respect to food, than depend on the development and continued cooperation of a country in Africa? I personally have a deep love for the idea of mechanizing agriculture in a fully sustainable way to the point you could drop a few pods anywhere and provide healthy, nutritious and free food for any population, for free, forever. What a gift for our children that would be.
industriousthou 6y ago
I think this kind of thing is really only economical for niche products like micro greens and fancy lettuce with high markups. It can be grown under perfect conditions, then transported and used the same day it's harvested. So, pretty cool from a technical and culinary perspective, but it's never going to produce staple crops economically. It seems kind of silly to portray it as being particularly eco-friendly or as addressing concerns like food security.

Phenomenit 6y ago

Why is it only possible to grow leafy greens with hydroponics? Is it a because of the size of the actual plant?

vkou 6y ago
Two reasons. Leafy greens are easy to grow hydroponically because they grow quickly. The problem with them is that they have nearly zero calories. People invest money into growing them hydroponically because they don't keep, or transport well, which makes them incredibly expensive out-of-season. The high margins make it economical. Nobody's going to be growing rice hydroponically, for instance, because rice retails for 75 cents a pound.
flukus 6y ago
Size is the main thing, plants like corn haven't had much in the way of vertical constraints so until we adapt new shorter breeds of them you can only grow so much per cubic meter and the economics doesn't work out compared to an open field. There's also the economics of how much goes into the non edible parts of the plant, this is much lower in leafy greens. Aside from that they just don't keep as well as more robust crops, so they have to be a lot fresher.
ttn 6y ago
The main issue is providing enough lighting/energy rather than growth medium. Everything is possible to grow with hydroponics although it is a little tricky.

sgeisler 6y ago

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. 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.

foxhop 6y ago

over engineered.

KaiserPro 6y ago

Vertical farms don't feed people. They are basically a solution to just in time delivery for restaurants and nothing else. 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. Look, if you want to make the world a better place you need to: 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) 2) make a multch that is cheap, safe and sustainable, so normal farmers can reduce water loss 3) create a cheap fast robot that can remove weeds 4) same again but for pests. 5) make a system of payments that allows both mixed crops (ie fruit/lumber/nuts) as well as livestock and arable. 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.)

rplnt 6y ago
6) reduce waste, stop feeding meat instead of people
- roebk 6y ago
  Ain't this the truth. It's an incredibly inefficient way to feed the human race. And to boot, there's fewer starving livestock then there are starving humans.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Northern Europeans and many steppe peoples exist largely because livestock can be raised on terrain that's not suitable for animal farming.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Factory farming uses almost no land. The animals never leave the building or their cage.
    - esarbe 6y ago

Kosirich 6y ago

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)

seddin 6y ago

It is still more expensive than exploiting illegal immigrants in southern Spain.

ttn 6y ago

Disclaimer: I've grown tomatoes, strawberries and weed indoors with artificial lighting. 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. That being said, the moment we figure out using fusion energy, conventional farming will most probably vanish. Also R&D on agriculture robots is a nice side perk, there is only so much to automate in agriculture & horticulture.

konschubert 6y ago
Yep, it's all about cost of energy. The solar farm that powers a vertical farm will always take up more space than the vertical farm saves. We have a nice podcast episode about this, maybe this interests you: https://www.predictions-podcast.com/2020/03/29/vertical-farming-10-yearsr-or-1000-years-away/ https://www.predictions-podcast.com/2020/03/29/vertical-farm...
- SamBam 6y ago
  I can't listen to your podcast right now, but solar panels are more efficient than photosynthesis, and you can produce the wavelength of light needed for plants by LEDs using a fraction of that power, so what makes you say that the solar farm that powers a vertical farm will always take up more space than the vertical farm saves?
  - konschubert 6y ago
    You're right, I was generalising a bit in my above comment. The wavelength - focusing argument actually comes up in the podcast and we agree it might possibly offer a way out of the energy trap. PS: Feel free to subscribe now to listen later ;)
wil421 6y ago
Someone claimed a while back most of these vertical farms would switch to growing weed once it became legal in the state(s) they have farms. I’m not sure if any other crop beside weed would turn a significant profit. You might be able to get a government contract to grow some other controlled substance and turn a small profit. The only other way it would work would be if it was a co-op owned by residents or subsidized by the local government.

tdelmas 6y ago

Are we in the matrix yet ?

markus_zhang 6y ago

Is this going to be true then? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZ4DnVfWYQ

TruthHurts44 6y ago

Good. Having the cities being food independent will be huge in putting the farmers in their place.

dumbfoundded 6y ago
Not really. 91M acres of corn is grown in the US annually. I don't see that being put indoors. It would be best to grow high calorie and protein rich food in indoor farms. I could imagine cell cultured meat or insect farms really disrupt farming. From a cost standpoint, vertical plant farms will have enormous difficulty competing with any outdoor farms.

dsego 6y ago

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.

tpmx 6y ago
In this case the money seems to come from e.g. the danish government VC fund Vækstfonden. There was a very similar play in Sweden that went bankrupt last year after consuming a lot of tax money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagon
- tpmx 6y ago
  Amount of money raised by Plantagon is reported to be: 120 million SEK, or $14M. Most of this likely tax money in some form. Denmark: Please watch out.

pi-err 6y ago

I've always been a fan of those projects but it's clear they've now mostly turned to greenporn. For this specific project: nothing makes sense. The farm is operated by "Nordic Harvest", with claims that it can produce 200 tons 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 herbs 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 https://www.nordicharvest.com/ https://www.nordicharvest.com/ 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): https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-urban-farm-rooftop-at-parix-expo-porte-de-versailles https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-u... 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.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Vertical farming techniques make a lot of sense ... on Mars. Maybe after one or two of these players go bankrupt, Elon Musk will acquihire the technology.

carapace 6y ago

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.

napier 6y ago

Converted multi-storey car parking structures and disused post-Covid office towers are the farms of the future.

dblock 6y ago
Anyone doing this in New York? I walk past the empty Hudson Yards every day.

Osiris30 6y ago

Also see previous recent discussion of indoor/vertical farming (2017) - (1) and (2). 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. 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)". A copy of the slides can be downloaded here (the link shown on the youtube page is dead - correct link[4]). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809841 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347288 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw [4] https://cpl.usu.edu/htm/research/publication=15787 https://cpl.usu.edu/htm/research/publication=15787

deegles 6y ago
What are some high-calorie/nutritional value plants that work well in vertical farming? Maybe if those were grown cheaply enough people would adapt their recipes to incorporate them.

LockAndLol 6y ago

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. [1]: https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farming-feed-the-world/a-47105412 https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farm... [2]: https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-construction-on-europes-first-commercial-vertical-farm https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-constr...

unearth3d 6y ago

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. But farms don't have to purchase light! Lighting costs for farming $0, for 100% artificial light NZ$1.90 per harvested Kg. 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. 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). 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, : so 13 1000m² floors at $2200m² = $28.6M / $50k = 570 times. Plus lighting at $1.90 per kg of harvestable product - which for wheat at 17t/Ha would be $32000 per crop cycle.