Could Vertical Farming Help Solve the Planet’s Growing Food Crisis?

FARMING IN THE UNITED STATES has long been associated with the Midwest’s spacious skies and amber waves of grain. Even so, a new way of growing food is establishing itself, one that uses LED lights and hydroponic water systems in place of sun and soil — and can be set up in repurposed warehouses or shipping containers almost anywhere in the country. Welcome to the vertical farm. 

There is growing interest in this kind of computer-assisted, climate-controlled agriculture. For starters, vertical farms score well on sustainability and yield per acre versus traditional farms. What’s more, when set up in areas with food uncertainty, they could help feed millions. “With food demand expected to increase 56% by 2050 from 2010¹ and rising extreme weather, it’s going to become more challenging to feed the world’s growing population sustainably,” says Haim Israel, Head of Thematic Investing at BofA Global Research. “Vertical farming and other kinds of urban agriculture are part of the solution, alongside plant-based diets.”

The benefits of going vertical

Although these high-rise farms burn a lot of energy, which raises their carbon footprint (and costs), they otherwise achieve a high degree of sustainability. Here’s how:³

• They can produce crops year-round, with far higher yields per acre than traditional farms.
• Grow rooms are sealed and the air filtered, eliminating pests without the use of insecticides. 
• The LED lamps used can provide the right spectrum of light for optimal plant growth.
• Water used in hydroponic (and mist, or aeroponic) systems is filtered and reused.
• Energy consumption may be supplemented by solar panels. 

In time, advances in technology should help reduce the indoor farm’s appetite for electricity, with more efficient LEDs and solar panels, and more intelligent computer systems. But farming’s environmental footprint doesn’t end at the farm. “Many vertical farms are located near large cities, meaning lower farm-to-table transport mileage and CO2 emissions, not to mention fresher food and less waste,” notes Israel. This proximity is also smart long-term planning: Two-thirds of the global population could live in or near urban centers by mid-century.⁴

A more secure global food supply

Closed cultivation systems may be key in solving another significant global issue: food security.

The economic lockdown in the United States following the coronavirus outbreak has highlighted how vulnerable our food supply chains can quickly become.

Indeed, global food uncertainty, already a major issue — some 2 billion people go to sleep at night not knowing if they’ll have enough to eat tomorrow⁶ — could worsen in the coming decades. Here’s why:

Population growth. Two billion more mouths may need to be fed in the next 30 years as the global population is expected to rise from 7.7 billion in 2020 to 9.7 billion in 2050.⁷

Loss of farmland. Earth has lost a third of its arable land in the past 40 years.⁸ Excessive use of plowing and fertilizer has led to the widespread degradation of soil.⁹ And urbanization is taking its toll, projected to gobble up between 1.6 and 3.3 million hectares of prime farmland each year between 2000 and 2030.¹⁰

Climate change. Shifts in weather patterns are making rainfall and temperatures less reliable¹¹ and droughts and floods more likely. The changing climate may also be expanding the habitable zones of insects and diseases harmful to plants.¹²

From niche to multibillion-dollar business

With outdoor crops threatened by climate change and urbanization, can indoor crops pick up the slack — and do so not only sustainably but on an industrial scale as well? 

“Vertical farms may recently have crossed a threshold in terms of viability,” says Jackie VanderBrug, Head of Sustainable and Impact Investment Strategy in the Chief Investment Office for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank. “A niche business just a few years ago, the global segment was valued at just above $2 billion in 2018 and could reach about $13 billion in 2026.”¹⁴ 

“Plant factories” are spreading in North America and Europe (which combined hold 60% of the global market¹⁵), where the organic foods they produce are popular. Yet to help nourish the planet in a significant way, “they will need to proliferate where food uncertainty is high,” VanderBrug notes. In Africa, for instance, some 277 million people are severely food insecure.¹⁶

A grand experiment in the desert

As it happens, one of the world’s largest vertical farms is under construction in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and it could prove a test case for governments seeking to feed a hungry populace. That’s because Dubai suffers from its own food uncertainty, importing at least 80% of the food it consumes,¹⁸ and is home to the kind of hot climate and poor soil (mostly desert) that’s prevalent in many famine-prone areas.

Could other large-scale indoor farms be built in hungry regions with less wealth than oil-rich Dubai? “While such a ‘moonshot’ project is conceivable, it would probably require governments and investors to provide a great deal of capital,” VanderBrug says. Such projects would also need to attract solar panel and LED manufacturers, technology firms focused on AI, concrete and construction companies and the like.

Feeding the world

It’s clear that the world is in urgent need of agricultural innovation if it’s going to feed the millions who currently can’t rely on secure food supplies — to say nothing of the millions yet to be born. So, the question is less whether the world can afford to try things like vertical farms — along with rooftop gardens, improved agricultural practices and plant-based meats (see “Fresh from the Field, or the Lab: The Burger of Tomorrow,” below) — but rather whether we can afford not to.