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Can someone explain how the business model for indoor farming is supposed to work? Is it just for high-priced specialty crops? Having spent some time in central

• gravypod 3y ago
  If you could get a farm 50% as efficient at growth in an extremely dense area (think Manhattan) my guess is the transport cost reduction might be worth it for high cost growth. Obviously if you factor in land prices where this would make sense it stops making sense
  • andromeduck 3y ago
    Last mile is where all the costs are though. Shipping produce in bulk is cheap AF
    • ThorsBane 3y ago
      Hook up drones to the farms. Allow anyone to obtain as much fresh produce as they need via drone delivery summoned from smartphone or computer.
      • phito 3y ago
        Drone delivery does not work. It sounds cool but in practice it is terrible.
        • hef19898 3y ago
          It always puzzpes me that people with zero idea how dirt cheap shipping is per unit believe drones, or moving production closer to consumers, woupd ever work from a price/cost point of view... And since the last mile is the most difficult one, supermarkets are pretty good in outspurcing that to customers.
        • ThorsBane 3y ago
          For now. Who is going to be the first company to pull it off though? I'd definitely subscribe to that - would love fresh produce parcels dropped off on my front steps or backyard by drone delivery. This has already been done with medical supplies before which is super cool.
          • phito 3y ago
            I really don't think it's feasible without some kind of AGI (or human) on the controls. There are so many environmental, technical, societal and regulatory issues to tackle. They make a lot of noise (although some are much quieter now), people could very easily jam their communication signals (or just shoot at them), birds, hardware failures, ... I worked on last-mile delivery project at a drone startup, we could do cool demos that impressed shareholders, but I could never see that working in the wild, people would get hurt. Also, once you solve the last-mile problem, a new one arises: the last-foot problem...
            • ThorsBane 3y ago
              It's not rocket science, that's for sure.
    • gravypod 3y ago
      Imagine if "last mile" was an elevator down to the first floor which was a fresh produce store. Someone could build these kind of structures on top of subway stops. There could then have elevators / stairs down into the subway so commuters could easily buy food on their way home. Also, it's not possible to ship some produce and maintain quality. Think sweet corn which (also avocados), yes, is still sweet when you get it in a grocery story but is far from as sweet when picked. There are also studies about loss of some nutrition just days after being harvested: https://fruitandvegetable.ucdavis.edu/files/197179.pdf https://fruitandvegetable.ucdavis.edu/files/197179.pdf And, you can make the case from other sides too. There's some initial interest in looking at how climate change, and rising CO2 levels, are affecting plant growth. Due to higher CO2 it seems like some plants are growing larger but less nutrient dense: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9003137/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9003137/ There are other factors which could make something like this make sense (if you solved some major tech challenges, got the land and materials for free, and only focus on social / ecological impact). For example, some fun reading can be found around the CO2 impact of fertilizer farming and tilling practices which could be removed by growing nitrogen fixing crops like beans/beats or growing in aquaponics systems so you can also sell fish and make algea.
      • andromeduck 3y ago
        Pretty sure almost anything else is more profitable on a sqft basis - retail, housing, dining, entertainment, etc. Urban utility rates also tend to be much higher than a bit further ou - likewise with labor costs owing to cost of living, esp housing.
        • gravypod 3y ago
          > Pretty sure almost anything else is more profitable on a sqft basis - retail, housing, dining, entertainment, etc. Yes, I fully agree. From my comment: "something like this make sense if [...] got the land and materials for free" > Urban utility rates also tend to be much higher than a bit further ou If you could centrally plan this kind of project and had complete freedom to do anything you wanted you could: 1. Use light tubes to funnel sunlight into the building for the plants. You could also pretty cheaply collect more light than the sqft-age of the roof by putting reflectors on multiple roofs to reflect light towards a central point on your farm building: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr.... 2. You can make the entire building a greenhouse. NYC loves steel, glass, and concrete so you could probably make the entire envelope of the structure glass. Many buildings already do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdy-bOTYlDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdy-bOTYlDs. This would let even more light in. 3. You could use this building as part of your waste treatment process. Human waste has a lot of nutrients needed for plant growth (nitrogen, phosphorus, etc). Rather than ship fertilizer, mined and processed across the globe, we could just extract most plant nutrients from waste. We're (the USA) currently not entirely managing this side responsibly: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/treated-sewage-algae-blooms-southern-california-coast https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/treated-sewage-algae-bloo... 4. We could use far less water which, in climates which do most of our growing, would be pretty important. Since the building would essentially be a greenhouse you would retain a lot more moisture. There are a lot of synergies where if we had control over the growing environment we could improve things. For example: we could collect light in light tubes, use crystals to split out only the light segments which the plants need, and use the remaining light segments for solar energy (panels, desalination, dehydration of products, etc). There are endless mini optimizations that we can't do right now. Obviously, though, this is entirely hypothetical because the construction costs are not currently yet outweighed by the existing farming industry production pipeline. Once more externalities are accounted for that may change things (ex: we lose the ability to mine fertalizer due to war or supply). Then moving food production closer to consumers might make sense.
• pydry 3y ago
  Eliminating the supply chain costs for fresh produce that spoils very quickly. I wonder if it actually doesn't work or if it just doesn't work for VC because it won't produce a multi-billion dollar rent machine with a high moat and low operating costs.
• 35997279 3y ago
  It certainly won’t replace central CA, which is one of the most fertile regions in the world. However, if you live far from that region, as most of the country doe, the freshness and available variety of foods decreases. If indoor farming becomes viable, it would allow those regions to have fresh foods they don’t normally have access to. I’d pay twice as much if I could get in Portland, ME the same kind of guac I get in LA.
  • HPsquared 3y ago
    Air freight is probably cheaper.
  • bushbaba 3y ago
    Avocados and other ingredients used keep for long enough to drive them from Mexico to Portland. So not sure that’s a produce issue.
    • rcme 3y ago
      In Portland, you only get specific types of avocados that can be harvested while still hard and survive the journey. This applies to all types of produce: being transportable is more important than tastiness.
  • dv_dt 3y ago
    For certain crops some of those vast fields are basically setup with temporary greenhouse enclosures. It makes me think that there is some accessible state in between that is an improvement to current practice. Especially if one thinks water may be more limited as we move forward. Water conserving techniques might be what makes or breaks some farming areas.
  • barathr 3y ago
    A combination of fruit walls and traditional passive greenhouses can zone push far better than vertical farms: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-fa... https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-greenhouse.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-gree...
• Fordec 3y ago
  There are plant's that are basically impossible to transport, so they aren't farmed for practical purposes. Remove the need for long distance transport, you have a unique proposition. Eg. I bet you've never had a Thimbleberry.
  • anon291 3y ago
    You're not growing a thimgleberry hydroponically.
    • Fordec 3y ago
      Ok? Indoor growing doesn't by law have to be hydroponics.
  • klyrs 3y ago
    Speaking as somebody who eats literally dozens of thimbleberries a year, you're not selling them more than 5 feet from the bush. Forget "transport" unless you're renting fruiting bushes to restaurants that charge $20/berry. But the berries fall off at a touch when they're ripe, so forget "transport" altogether.
  • zafka 3y ago
    What climate/zone do they grow? Where can I get me some seeds?
    • Fordec 3y ago
      USDA 3b is what I've generally seen sited. Mostly online, including Etsy, but it's much easier to grow by cuttings.
• hotpotamus 3y ago
  I've wondered about this for wasabi. I believe it is the most expensive vegetable on the market at several hundred dollars per kilo - almost all of what is sold as wasabi is actually horseradish. Apparently it is picky about conditions (as the price would suggest), and so I'd think it would be an interesting opportunity.
• Brajeshwar 3y ago
  Imagine creating the ideal climate (indoor) to farm Kashmiri Saffron[1] that cannot be grown in most climates except for a very few select regions. Kashmiri Saffron goes for about $1,500 a pound. The other is to add much needed nutrients that deficient people need. Here is an anecdote from our adventure. We were able to artifically add enough Vitamin B12 to Spinach that non-vegetarians can benefit from. Vitamin B12 is not available in vegetarian diet. The other audacious goal we tried. What if that same Spinash is loaded with enough nutrients for pregnant women that the malnourished women in rural India can get their fair share of nutrients during their terms for a healthy mother and a healthy baby! These specialized way of farming can only be managed by a well managed indoor farm. For instance, in a country like India with enough sunlight, besides leveraging solar energy, we can also make the plants have enough sunlight while still inside the farms. So, combine a mix of hydro + the likes of Dutch Bucket Method can make way for lot cheaper way of indoor farming. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron Edit: Sorry for feeding the wrong nutrient. Vitamin B12 and not K12.
  • mickeyp 3y ago
    > Imagine creating the ideal climate (indoor) to farm Kashmiri Saffron[1] that cannot be grown in most climates except for a very few select regions. Kashmiri Saffron goes for about $1,500 a pound. I can grow saffron in my garden in London. The problem isn't growing it, but harvesting the filaments...
    • Brajeshwar 3y ago
      I believe that is where India's population of 1.4 Billion comes in. There are too many unemployed people willing to work and benefit from some form of income. A decent pay (not an exploitative one) for most housewives would kill to get that job of harvesting Saffron in their spare time. That might supplement their household income and even send their kids to school.
      • pedrosorio 3y ago
        Are you just going to ignore that the parent invalidated the whole first paragraph in your previous comment? “that cannot be grown in most climates except for a very few select regions”
• anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  I thought some of its benefits were more harvests per year, denser growing, and control of water use and fertilizer.
• lightedman 3y ago
  "Can someone explain how the business model for indoor farming is supposed to work?" This depends entirely upon a bunch of various factors, but the major draws are that you can control the environment, and with specialized hydroponics techniques you can drastically reduce the usage of fertilizers and water to obtain an equal-quality crop. You can also drastically reduce the footprint required - in certain hydroponics systems, what would normally take 1 full acre of land (say, alfalfa) could be done in 1/8 of an acre. Depending on the crop, you can even get away without using light at all (most grass crops work with this) reaping even more savings on energy usage. Many of these farms are failing because they've got a bad mix of factors that they did not thoroughly think through before implementing. All of the farms I've set up in Australia, UK, and the Middle East are still working just fine, a decade later.
  • fragmede 3y ago
    > you can even get away without using light at all Sorry, do you mean that just sunlight that comes in through whatever windows there are is sufficient? Surely you don't mean that grasses are viable in pitch black?
    • lightedman 3y ago
      Zero light, period. Totally-enclosed buildings with no windows. Seed to feed in 7 days.
• VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  1. Luxury-good pricing and marketing 2. Riding a trend with keywords like eco-friendly, sustainable, high-tech, etc. Don't ask me how yuppie's came to associate eco-friendly and sustainable with indoor-farming, but that's what the target prospect associates it with anyway. Think about the economics of it for just ten seconds and you'll come to the conclusion that it's anything but sustainable, efficient, etc. Ultimately, it's selling status and fashion. Trendy urban restaurants can cite "local indoor-farmed mache" on their menus and yuppie's will salivate.
  • akira2501 3y ago
    The plants need light. But.. we're indoors. However.. we can install grow lamps. Now.. we need a way to power them. I know.. put solar panels on the roof. This is literally what many of these "operations" have done. That was the moment they could have realized that none of this is actually going to work in any way that could be described as "an improvement."
• f6v 3y ago
  Weed farming is technically indoor farming.
  • akira2501 3y ago
    Yes.. and you produce a product that sells at $20 per gram. That's why they do it. There are pretty much zero food products that sell at that price per weight.
    • antisthenes 3y ago
      In states where it is legalized, the prices are nowhere near $20/gram. The price is close to $100/ounce, which would put it somewhere between 3$ and 4$ per gram, with adjustments for quality. At this price, energy and fertilizer inputs become substantial enough to eat into margins.
      • lbotos 3y ago
        NYC post tax 3.5g is $50-$60 which is almost $20/g
      • akira2501 3y ago
        The prices are exactly $20/gram in California if you decide to buy at that quantity. You get slight discounts for volume, but this is the base price for high quality indoor grams, and they are packaged and priced as such on the shelf. You can certainly get $100/ounce, or even $45/ounce products here as well. These are typically lower quality /outdoor/ grown products. The point being, you can optionally grow marijuana indoors because this margin exists, probably in a way that it would never for lettuce.