Item — HN Reader

Over the years, many firms have poured many $millions into vertical farms.

If you're growing extreme-value crops - marijuana, or maybe exotic salad greens for Michelin-starred restaurants - that can actually work.

Otherwise, you're trying to compete with millions of square miles of naturally sun-lit dirt, and extremely efficient modern agro-tech stacks. Bankruptcy awaits.

> just technologist delusions of mine?

I'd bet you've read several articles about techno-utopians setting up vertical farms, and their grand dreams. Which always hand-wave the "how can this massively expensive setup complete with dirt?" part.

Farming sun-lit dirt does not magically require monoculture, nor poor farming practices. The problems is monoculture's appeal to certain human cultures - especially profit-maximizing "big ag" capitalists - and the agricultural policies enacted by naive politicians.

1 comments

> you're trying to compete with millions of square miles of naturally sun-lit dirt

You're begging the question with this statement. Indoor growing is used when you don't have access to this kind of resource. There are many locations where access to land or suitable conditions is restricted.

CEA has been used profitably for a long time, and the most valuable crops are mushrooms and leafy greens, not exotic or illegal plants.

> ... when you don't have access to ...

These days, "don't have access" is a micro-market. Everywhere else, indoor growing has to compete with the cost & delay of importing. Last I heard, even Antarctic bases are only growing a few fresh veggies - 99% of their food is imported. (Well, plant-based food. They might do a fair bit of fishing.)

> CEA has been used ...

My comment was replying to magemaster's "large scale vertical farms ... just technologist delusions".* Vs. greenhouses - which can be little more than plastic sheeting over light wooden framing over sunlit dirt - yes, those have far saner economics. Mushrooms - which can be grown in dark caves without dirt using prehistoric technology - are also a very different thing.

*To quote Wikipedia - "The modern concept of vertical farming was proposed in 1999 by Dickson Despommier, professor of Public and Environmental Health at Columbia University.[2] Despommier and his students came up with a design of a skyscraper farm that could feed 50,000 people."