Vertical Farms: The Uphill Climb of Future Agriculture

DISCLAIMER – UNLESS SPECIFIED, NO TEXT IN THIS BLOG POST OR PAST/FUTURE POST IS GENERATED USING GENERATIVE AI.

What is Vertical Farming?

Vertical farming is the agricultural practice of growing crops in stacks, rather than in fields. It has the benefit of requiring less land – analogous to the difference between a bungalow and a block of flats. The most simple level of vertical farming is mushroom farming, where mushrooms are often grown on stacks or pillars of substrate. However, plants prove to be harder to grow due to the need for light for photosynthesis.

This image was generated by Generative AI (Deep AI) using the phrase ‘vertical farming’

There has been significant growth in the vertical farming space, with a projected value of $20bn by 2026, from $5.5nb in 2020. Many companies and organizations are working on different techniques, including AeroFarms and Infarm, which have managed to raise significant investments. In 2022 the Jones Food Company opened the largest vertical farm of its time in the UK, having an area of >23k m² [1].

The importance of vertical farming could be perhaps most important to countries that have to import a large amount of their food, often due to poor agricultural conditions. In 2020, it was reported that the UK imported 40% of vegetables and 84% of fruit consumed [2]. Not only is this costly in import taxes but there are environmental concerns on CO2 required to import and also diseases which could also be accidentally imported [3]. The prospect of vertical farming could mitigate these issues with home-based production. This is especially important when considering that the UK has experienced extreme weather events, most likely due to climate change, resulting in dry seasons and poor soil fertility [4].

Vertical Farming Technology

At the most basic level, vertical farming offers the conditions that crops require to grow – when considering plants, these are water, nutrients (eg Phosphorus), and light. Light is supplied through LEDs, often crop-specific in terms of wavelengths, distance from crop, and cycling [5]. Nutrients and water tend to be supplied alongside each other through aeroponic or hydroponic systems [6].

These variables are controlled and monitored to reach the optimum return on investment (ROI). However, this gives vertical farmers full control of the nurture of these organisms, opening the door to the exploitation of epigenetics. This has been observed in studies conducted on strawberries, whereby differential lighting conditions have been shown to affect taste measurements and other qualities of the fruit. Furthermore, lighting conditions have been shown to change the impact of other stressors on strawberries and other crop types [8,9]. Research is still ongoing to find optimum conditions for different crops. It is important to find the best balance of variables, whilst considering the possibility of diminishing returns, which could impact overall ROI.

Robotics driven by AI also seems to have potential applications in vertical farming. As discussed in a previous post about AI, there is vision processing available, whereby machine learning can be used to identify attributes of an image. This could help identify crops ready to be harvested, implemented into robotics to aid in autonomous harvesting and much more. Since vertical farms are mostly inside, these robots would not be limited by electricity or network bottlenecks, which autonomous robots on conventional fields may be prone to.

Due to the nature of vertical farms essentially being highly controlled labs, there is likely to be future innovation in technologies that can be implemented into this type of agriculture. These can not only impact the quality and taste of crops but also autonomise production to maximize profits with fewer man-hours required.

The Current Issue of Electricity

The main issue with vertical farming is the cost of electricity required to grow crops. As many are aware, illegal cannabis production is often discovered by high electrical use of properties or areas. Although amateur grows are most likely not as efficient or high-tech as industrial settings, similar needs are required for the leafy greens which are currently being grown on vertical farms. Energy price increases and fluctuations in the UK have been seen to impact both individuals and companies. This has been demonstrated by the cost of living crisis of 2022/23, where small companies had to be shut down and some individuals could not afford to heat their homes electrically [11,12].

The reasons for such large fluctuations here are extensive and too many to briefly summarise. However, vertical farming would be impacted greatly by such fluctuations and increases in energy prices. Technologies are being developed to reduce the use of electricity in this scene, including the use of reflectors to aim sunlight into vertical farms to minimize the need for LEDs [13].

Therefore, the best place for companies to start investing and innovating technologies would be countries with low energy prices, such as the UAE which has seen massive expansions in renewable energy [14,15]. From here, efficiency could be fine-tuned in order to expand to markets that may be more limited by electricity costs.