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For those of you who are not familiar, vertical farming is an indoor method for growing plants without soil that utilizes special nutrients delivery systems, highly-controlled environments, sophisticated lighting, resource management and robot automatization (among other things!)

The quickest explanation begins with an example- AeroFarms is one of the most ambitions vertical farming projects with a capacity for producing 1.7 million pounds of greens annually. It is a truly state of the art facility that pushes the boundaries of agriculture. Watch this video to learn more!. Here are some other great vertical farm examples.

(Source: https://www.dtnpf.com)

Technology is constantly being improved and becoming quite efficient. Because of this, many are considering it to be the future of food production, but there are also opposing opinions concerned with the environmental impact of vertical farming.

Vertical Farming Advantages

Let`s continue with some of the major benefits in order to gain a better overall understanding of the field. This will later enable us to adequately weigh the pros and cons related to the limitations of vertical farming.

Reliability

The dependability of vertical farming is by far one of the best perks of it.. The environment is closed and highly controlled, impervious to weather conditions. This means that the growers can ensure a steady production flow but it also provides predictability. Furthermore, the crops are not seasonal and production can go all year round.

Resource efficiency

Vertical farming uses 80% less fertilizer than traditional farming, but on top of that it also uses a staggering 95% less water thanks to clever circulation and reusability. Operational costs are also reduced with the help of robot automation and there are very few hands-on workers involved.

Lighting

The biggest improvement comes from the lighting vertical farming utilizes. Growing plants indoors requires a lot of light and in order for it to work state-of-the-art equipment is needed. Efficient full spectrum LED grow lights are incredibly energy saving and can provide plants with the precise amounts of light and correct spectrum for each growth stage.

(Source: https://advancedledlights.com/)

Space efficiency

Due to the vertical nature of growing the plants, space efficiency is achieved- just as the name ‘vertical farming’ suggests.  A vertical farm uses 88% less air space than a regular farm for the same amount of growing space.

(Source: http://www.businessinsider.com)

Transportation costs

Vertical farming can be implemented almost anywhere, including in the heart of big cities. This means that there isn't any need for lengthy logistics stunts and transportation costs are minimized even more.

Vertical Farming Disadvantages

Now that you're familiar with the concept of vertical farming and what makes it so great, it`s time to take a look at the other perspective. As in many fields, there are plenty of opposing opinions with skepticism involved.

The main concerns critics point out are the large operational costs involved and the carbon footprint on the environment. Despite optimization in all of the growing processes, vertical farms still need to use a lot of lighting as opposed to regular farming which relies on the sun. LED lighting is developing at an incredible pace and becoming ever more efficient, but still only 50% of the used electricity can be converted into light.

Dr. Louis Albright from the Controlled Environment Agriculture Findings department at Cornell University says in a recorded seminar that for each kilo of lettuce produced indoors there are four kilos of carbon dioxide generated. Presumably, this is without the further environmental burden added by devices such as ventilation, climate control and humidifiers. According to an article found on Washington Post producing lettuce indoors can leave a carbon mark of up to 20 times more than producing it outdoors.

(Source: http://www.cnn.com)

In the same seminar mentioned above, Dr. Albright makes a strong case by providing an example of the hypothetical carbon footprint left, if all of New York City`s wheat for a year was grown on a vertical farm. The average New Yorker consumes about 24 kilos of bread annually and it's estimated that in order to grow the necessary amount of wheat it would take 3 vertical farming facilities, each the size of Empire State Building. And while it might seem cool to have such a centralized wheat production point, the costs of running it are quite large. If the facility operates using efficient LED lights, running at $0.10 per kilowatt/hour, the cost would be $11 per loaf of bread- and that’s only to cover the lighting costs! Further production costs are sure to drive the cost of a single loaf significantly up, making it affordable only for the economically stable folks. In the seminar Dr. Albright also makes a similar case using lettuce and tomatoes, and again it turns out to be very pricy.

 The Verdict

So there you have it, the two main arguments against vertical farming – cost and carbon footprint. Are they really an issue? Yes, of course. But are these issues resolvable in the foreseeable future? Yes again.

History shows us that technology is always developing, especially when it comes to important matters such as feeding the world. What seems difficult to achieve at the moment might be solved with a simple improvement in a tiny process along the chain. Agricultural equipment manufacturers are putting massive efforts into R&D, especially in the vertical farming field. For example, EdenWorks is an aquaponics vertical farm operation that is researching ways to integrate intricate sensors throughout the facility in order to gather valuable data and then use it for input optimization.   

What is essential at this point is for industry leaders to share information and learn from each other, which is understandably difficult in the global competitive market. If the true potential of vertical is unlocked, it would benefit us all.

Author’s Bio: Luis Rivera