Tech + Agriculture: Can Vertical Farms Feed the Future?
Welcome to the Robotics Roundtable
This is our third newsletter. In it, we take an article that piques our interest and discuss it from our unique perspectives. Sevy - the robotics hardware engineer, Connie - the robotics software engineer, and Sean - the social entrepreneur and marketing + finance dork.
This week we chose an article discussing the application of robotics to food production: The vertical farming bubble is finally popping. The article got our attention for a few reasons. Firstly, vertical farms have the potential to address many of the world's most pressing issues. Second, while vertical farms offer many advantages over traditional farms, many of them seem to be failing. Third, the continued application of robotics has the potential to further enhance the promise of vertical farms.
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Article Summary
The vertical farming industry, which aims to grow produce indoors, is facing a reckoning as many companies struggle to turn a profit. Despite attracting over $1 billion in venture capital investment, most companies in the sector are failing to be financially viable. The high costs of building and operating indoor farms, including expensive lighting and labor expenses, make it difficult for them to compete with outdoor farming in terms of cost-efficiency. Moreover, investors have become more cautious about funding new projects, leading to a decline in capital availability for the industry. The complex technology required to run vertical farms and the ambitious growth expectations of startups have also contributed to the sector's challenges. While vertical farming offers benefits such as reduced water usage and avoidance of pests and diseases, the economic viability of growing low-value crops, like lettuce, in this manner remains a significant challenge.
Connie’s Corner
Indoor agriculture is a topic near and dear to my heart. Balanced perfectly at the intersection of my interest in robotics and homesteading, companies like Bowery, Iron Ox, and Plenty, seemed ready to revolutionize the way we produce food. and on controller environment agriculture (CEA). This article brought me back down to the ground on the realities of the current economic climate, and the feasibility of CEA as an industry.
This article is not the first to sound the alarms about indoor agriculture. [Agfundernes](https://agfundernews.com/) warned startups that that indoor ag was headed towards the “trough of disillusionment” all the way back in 2021. Further articles in https://www.wired.com/story/vertical-farms-energy-crisis/ Wired and the BBC https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230106-what-if-all-our-food-was-grown-in-indoor-vertical-farms question the feasibility and even the intelligence of growing salad indoors. The news has only gotten worse, with companies closing and the investors leaving the industry. Is CEA doomed?
I say no, but with caution. Layoffs have been aggressive across the tech sector, and it’s no wonder investors are cautious. It’s possible that indoor ag is doing same thing self-driving car companies faced a year ago; collapsing to a few market leaders that pulled ahead, while those who couldn’t keep up are being acquired or shutting their doors. The bubble might be popping, but the industry is far from dead. This FastCompany article even interviews a few companies that are successful - some of which were at the annual Indoor Agriculture conference in Vegas this year. It seems a poor time to enter the space, but for the established, there’s demand to grow.
From the environmental side, CEA is much more water and pesticide efficient, a crucial note when soil health has been degrading for decades, and water reserves are dwindling. Although many companies are founded in the temperate US and Europe, multiple articles mention that vertical farming may be more profitable in areas where it is more difficult to grow crops outside. Yes, the carbon footprint is large. Crops that require pollination cannot be grown (robotic bees will NOT fix this). The energy consumption will never be as efficient as simply using the sun and photosynthesis. And yet, I think indoor ag could, if anything, help save the outdoors from ourselves. It will eventually become a necessity.
Can we grow everything indoors? Definitely not right now. We can’t even grow a fraction of the global food supply with CEA. However, with climate change on the horizon, I believe it is important to at least try and improve our efficiency in creating food. Although my preferred method would be sustainable growing methods for large-scale farms, indoor agriculture has it’s place for specific, high-cost low-biomass products. My main concern is the jump from lettuce and leafy greens to literally any larger scale staple food is something these companies will have to learn - or remain forever a boutique novelty. It's a hefty boi this time. I've got a lot of opinions about it.
Sean’s Corner
As of 2023, we have 55 harvests left.
55 years before soil is depleted and food production becomes unstable.
Food insecurity is a problem now, but it will become society-collapsing if we don’t do something - like today.
In the face of this, startups have created vertical farms. These farms are failing. The article explains why. I’m asking a different question: where.
In a world of land-based farms, where do vertical farms fit?
In theory, the benefits of vertical farms are huge - less waste, multiples of current food production per square foot, no pesticides, etc. But, as I understand the market, they have two key problems: energy & soil.
The Energy Problem
Imagine an acre of lettuce. Now cut that acre into 10 sections and stack them on top of each other.
You still need all of the light that hits 10 acres to grow that food, except the roof where you place your solar power is 1/10th the size.
And it gets worse, plants are ~100% efficient at converting sunlight into energy (source), but solar power is at best 23% efficient (source) and they lose even more power to the building’s internal electrical system. Even if solar panels became 100% efficient, you would still need more energy than you can produce freely from just building-based solar.
Outdoor, soil-based farms not only benefit from ~100% conversion of solar energy, but they benefit from the natural biome around them. Trillions of bacteria, insects, and fungi, converting other sources of energy into our food.
As a result, vertical farms will almost always need supplemental power and until battery storage and clean, plentiful energy becomes advanced - vertical farms will always have energy issues.
The Soil Problem
The plants in the vertical farms I’ve reviewed get their nutrients either via direct spraying on their roots (aeroponics) or a continuous flow of water + nutrients over their roots (hydroponics).
These approaches work to produce food, but do they create a carrot as nutritious and delicious as one grown in rich soil surrounded by fungi, bacteria, insects, and soil minerals? I don’t know.
Do they store carbon and increase ecological resilience like food grown sustainably or regeneratively? No.
In fact, we might reframe global food insecurity from a food production problem to a soil generation problem.
Would it not be more efficient and create longer term resiliency to create tech that generates or regenerates fertile soil than tech that produces lettuce at scale?
So given these issues, do vertical farms have a place?
I think so, but I dont think it's in daily food production even if cheap or free energy becomes available. I believe the true opportunity for vertical farms is in resiliency food production.
Vertical farms provide incredible stop gaps against failed harvest, drought, food deserts, or refugee crises.
Ideally, this approach would allow robotics to focus development on soil regeneration at-scale preserving our ecosystem, contributing to the reversal of climate change, and eliminating our 55 harvest doomsday.
Sevy’s Corner
Vertical farms are the seed of a great idea for a company. At least I thought so before reading this article. When the story is too good to be true or the idea feels too good, it usually is. I remember throwing around ideas for companies in college and this was one of my favorites because of its impact on food poverty, benefit to the environment, and as an engineer, sheer efficiency. However, when starting a company, it is critical to solve the right problems. The problem defined by vertical farms is how to make farms closer to the consumer and efficient. Vertical farming with LED lighting, hydroponics, and/or robots in close proximity to population centers is a great solution. But it is the wrong problem.
The right problem is zooming out to the simpler question: what ways are there to change farming that will make it better and less expensive. There is still another trap beyond asking the wrong question. The trap of getting caught in the sexy solution. Advanced robotics and novel technology is sexy but you always have to respect the economics. Technology might help but you have to consider the costs to see if there is a net savings. These vertical farming companies are saving space vertically but there is a high cost of renting land in a city. They can use LEDs anytime of day or night but energy costs are sometimes high. Robotics can make it more efficient than hiring laborers but now you are hiring expensive roboticists.
As an engineer working on robots you would think that I would always champion the use of robotics in farming but as we say: hardware is hard. I champion the use of simple, effective solutions to the world’s problems. When I build a robot I know that the simple mechanisms or easy to use features will be the ones that do not break. It is the same when zooming out to a company. The article reads, “In the Netherlands, greenhouses grow nearly a million tons of tomatoes a year, along with other crops, making the country a major food exporter despite its tiny size”. To me a lightbulb went off that there is a simple solution to farming called greenhouses. While not as sexy as LED lighting, hydroponic greenhouses feed millions and the energy from the sun is free. Low transportation costs show why this solution has been successful.
If I wanted to solve the problem: what ways are there to change farming that will make it better and less expensive I would start by learning more about greenhouses and other tried solutions. Then I would figure out how to improve the successful ones wether it is with technology or not. Robotics is always on the table as a solution but it has to provide a large benefit versus its expense.
Synthesis
Diverse Takes on Nutrition in Technologically Assisted Farming
We all voiced various views about the overlap of nutrition, technology, and the agricultural industry.
Sean, supportive of vertical farming in theory, brought up possible nutritional losses in food cultivated without soil's biological complexity, embodied energy, and natural components, questioning its capacity to generate nutrient-rich crops. He also suggested that robots might be better used in soil-generation at scale than in vertical farms. Connie, admitting widespread nutrition testing is limited, advocated for the vertical farm industry, while also calling for enhancements in conventional farming methods. Meanwhile, Sevy argued for simplicity in robot-supported farming and suggested that given that much of farmland is used for feed, lab-grown meat might have a potential role in tackling farming challenges.
Unanimous Concerns About Energy Use in Vertical Farming
Despite differing opinions, all agreed on the considerable obstacle of energy consumption in vertical farming. Sean stressed the absence of sustainable/non-climate damaging technology for energy generation, while Sevy expressed apprehensions about rising energy demand and expenditures. However, views diverged on the cause of the current industry downturn, with Connie blaming it on market and tech investment volatility, while Sevy attributed it to a shift in economic climate.
Conclusion
Reflecting on our discussion, it's clear that the interplay between technology, agriculture, and nutrition is complex. Striving to automate farming aspects without compromising essential natural processes triggers a debate over what should be automated and what needs to be conserved. The concept of "playing out of position" emerged, prompting us to reconsider whether we're applying technology in the wrong areas and advocating for a reimagined, holistic, and healthy food system. As we look to the future, it's vital to discern the role of vertical farming within a comprehensive solution that factors in both sustainability and nutrition.
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