No. It increases the cost pretty good and can be considered bad on the environment as it requires more chemicals and electricity. It is very efficient on water use though.
“[Vertical farming] is not a fad,” Wanna bet? Why are people willing to pay three times more for the same product? “It’s not three time healthier.”
The greenhouses around here can produce two crops every year....which is what they were built to do.
Our closest hydroponic "greenhouse" produces the year round.
Either you want reasonably priced USA vegetables or you want Mexican seconds.
Fantastic article. The numbers analysis alone is worth the time reading for those interested in new agritech.
vertical farming when it matures —will enable the earth to sustain earth populations 100 times greater than those today.
Hopefully by that time a fair percentage of people will be buzzing around the solar system.
“My first thought was, ‘we could build a lot of greenhouses for $200 million,’” recalls Neil Mattson, a professor of plant science at Cornell and one of the country’s leading academic voices on indoor agriculture, who’s found that high-tech greenhouses that harness sunlight are more cost- and carbon-friendly than vertical farms that use artificial light.
...
That sounds more promising on Earth. The vertical farming sounds better for spaceships.
Vertical farming: Plenty receives $200 million investment from tech giants - TomoNews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dicaL7MLooQ
Aquaponics System - $75 - How We Easily Build Aquaponics Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAeJ5RwqPFQ
Backyard aquaponics: DIY system to farm fish with vegetables
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBspR2p0YYM
“carrying a price tag of between $9 and $12 per pound.”
not in any grocery store I go to ... Costco & Sam’s have really nice organic baby spinach for $4.48/lb ...
Can’t greenhouse farming be vertical?
Lower carbon? Seriously? That's a pretty good trick!
Long answer? No.
It is a persistent fantasy of the urban elites that they will be able to divorce themselves from the grubby, unsophisticated, bible-thumping yokels who grow their food.
This is, of course, completely impossible. But, if there are people with tons of money who want to pursue impossible fantasies, you can count on many people willing to pretend to help them in order to separate them from that money.
Folks, this is how you beat globalization.
Technology is moving toward replicating the soil of the Burgundy region of France, the coffee from Colombia, etc. The quality of the finished products will be untouchable from the imported brands and at lower prices.
It would be a win/win for the the U.S. consumer.
My wife and i are involved with vertical farming. This is simply not feasible at this time. Certainly not on the scale that the article is covering. i can’t tell what the long term will be like.
Until the electricity costs are mitigated, look for lots of small, local farmers such as my wife and me. We use small, cheap 20 Watt LED grow light arrays for seed beds, and they seem to work quite well.
Hydroponics will begin next year, just as soon as i can get the trial facility built and the software written for the control system.
Of course all of this presumes that we will have the time with both of us working full time jobs.
bkmk