Friday, December 17, 2021

Vertical Farming

So-called "vertical farming" is hot. I apply the adjective because I think the category is loose enough to apply to all envirnonments where controls are tight: maybe humans replace sunlight with Leds, replace the soil with a nutrient solution, ensure the temperature stays within optimum ranges, etc., regardless of whether there are two or more layers/stories worth of plants.   

The advantages are growing close to the market, tight control over diseases and pests, high degree of automation, more uniform quality of produce, etc.  The two big questions are the big capital investment required to start up and the continuing cost of inputs: mostly electricity for lighting and cooling and labor, especially for automation--these are questions because I don't think there's any installations which have had a long enough life to prove profitability. Perhaps a third question is the range of produce which can be grown for a profit in the most advanced setups. (After all, we've had hothouse tomatoes on the market for years.





No comments: