
Ask HN: What are the biggest obstacles to vertical farms? - TheUndead96
I have been following the development of vertical farms and hydroponics for a little while, since the popular &quot;food computer&quot; TED Talk a few years ago [1]. I have seen some adoption, with some companies supplying limited produce to market [2].<p>Progress seems to slow to me. Why isn&#x27;t this more prevalent? Why aren&#x27;t hydroponics in general more prolific? Why is this not feeding developing countries?<p>- [1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=LEx6K4P4GJc<p>- [2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boweryfarming.com&#x2F;
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troysk
The cost of providing lights (even using LEDs) is still not economically
cheaper than the sun in most cases. If hydroponics is done in open it would be
interesting to see if there are actually any advantages given that hydroponic
farms will be near city where land is more expensive than where the farmlands
are. Also pests again become a problem. There is a reason that most hydroponic
companies are targeting micro-greens and other leafy vegetables as they are
easy to grow and also most of the produce is edible so less waste of area and
electricity.

In my experiments, I built multiple automated hydroponic setups and I have
been able to grow only micro-greens and lettuce successfully and in a shorter
cycle. All other experiments of growing strawberries and saffron failed.

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sylvinus
FYI [https://en.agricool.co/](https://en.agricool.co/) are growing
strawberries at scale in shipping containers but it took them a couple years
of R&D.

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tom_mellior
Where can you buy them? I remember seeing their container in Paris two years
ago and checking out their website. At that time it said they were trying to
figure out how to distribute them. That's what their FAQ still say. I see no
indication that their product really exists, let alone "at scale".

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whazor
It is very hard to commercially beat the Dutch greenhouses, which for decades
have been the most efficient method of providing food both in summer and
winter.

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tonyedgecombe
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-
agriculture-sustainable-farming/) is an interesting read on their farming.

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Mvandenbergh
The thing to compare vertical farms to is their horizontal greenhouse
equivalents which are also closed systems with very high levels of control and
yield per land area.

Once you do that, the balance is basically between the greater capital and
power costs of vertical farms vs being closer to urban markets.

Transport is cheap so that never works out in favour of vertical.

Also, developing countries with low agricultural yields would adopt
technologies like drip irrigation, better fertiliser and pesticide management
before greenhouses and greenhouse before vertical farms.

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jjmellon
In addition to cost of lighting, I've found that the cost of hydroponic
fertilizer is also too high, at least for small growers buying it premixed.
I've successfully grown hydroponic tomatoes following standard guidelines, and
found that the cost of the fertilizer is roughly equal to the value of the
tomatoes harvested.

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notjtrig
Gravity is definitely the biggest obstacle to growing vertically, it takes a
lot of capital to overcome gravity.

I'm on a small farm with some buildings but I have no desire to grow indoors,
there is an abundance of soil and light outdoors, my customers buy the type of
food grown outdoors, the environmental impact is probably always going to be
less, and vertical growing is only suited for a small amount crops.

We can't feed people from vertical farms because they do not grow the types of
food people eat the majority of, mostly cereal grains. Tomatoes, potatoes and
larger vegetables are not viable so we're limited to salad greens, herbs,
wheat grass ect.

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VBprogrammer
There was a really interesting link on a related subject a while back where
they were using solar concentration to generate heat, power and desalination
for use by the attached greenhouse. To me that's a much more impressive use of
technology.

Edit: I think this was it [http://www.sundropfarms.com/sundrop-
system/](http://www.sundropfarms.com/sundrop-system/)

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Quequau
Surely a significant part of the problem is subsidies for entrenched,
petroleum centric, industrial agriculture.

Subsidising already successful business as usual corporations has got to make
improvements through external disruption extremely difficult.

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contingencies
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw)

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elhenrico
My take is that more complex cultures need a symbiotic relationship with
bacteria, fungi and insects to thrive.

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innodb1
We are a commercial agricultural producer using polyhouses in southern India;
we have couple of playhouses so I am well aware of the nuances.

polyhouses and any other associated with these like vertical farm,hydrophonics
etc are firstly suited for specific set of plants.

Not all plants and veggies can be grown , some plants cannot be grown inside
polyhouses at all, i would say almost 70 % of veggies which are mass consumed
can never be grown in polyhouses,hydrophonics etc.

Just think of all the veggies you had today or yesterday and you will easily
understand these cannot be grown in polyhouses let alone hydrophonics.

there is no doubt significant increase in production, compared to outdoor
farming. These are because of various factors. The main factors are we allow
the plant to grow suitably thereby maximizing required production.

For example in a capsicum polyhouse, there are nets which help the plant to
climb, and almost everything is supplied to the plant on more than required
basis.

The capsicum plant is allowed minimal leaves so that max nutrition is allowed
for the capsicum alone and not for the plant leaves etc. You can think of it
it like a kid with a silver spoon, these plants get everything in return for
capsisum and capsicum alone. ( who cares abt capsicum leaves BTW )

Secondly The price of capsicum is not determined by the buyer nor the producer
, its determined by some trader who is totally unknown. This unknown person
gets to decide on the price.

You the end customer nor the farmer has any say in determining the price. This
is especially difficult when the output is perishable. The farmer has to sell
it at whatever the price which is offered or else his produce will rot. When
you grow a bumper crop its all the more difficult to find that many no of
traders , transport etc. Selling 1 Ton itself is difficult enough, imagine the
complexity when you have 10 tons from the same farm. You would need more
resources to manage everything. The trader will never offer the same rate as
he would have offered for 1 ton since he knows very well that you would never
be able to sell 10 tons.

No country has the ways and means to distribute all the produce effectively
across to its citizens.

The problems with polyhouses compound when other methods are introduced (
think hydrophonics,aerophonics,vertical farming etc), There is no economics
involved in these.

Unless you do it as a passion. its never profitable to grow brocolli or
lettuice in hydrophonics. The trader will never give you the right price if
you have an huge quantity.

Its very easy to say brocolli sells for $X and we can do this and that and
reduce it by $y in reality no one can control every aspect of the food chain.

Isreal does it becuase of its limited land availabilty , not with the case of
India ,china and USA.

I am not sure if I had explained the whole correctly but Hydroponics + etc is
only a hobby never commercially viable.

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esailija
> Why is this not feeding developing countries?

Because that is not the problem, the problem is neocolonialism/imperialism the
highest stage of capitalism[1].

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Sta...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage_of_Capitalism)

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TheUndead96
I can see how this is true of fast food, motor vehicles and electronics, not
necessarily fresh produce. A South African winefarm can only make South
African wine in South Africa. Coca-cola and Heineken can (and do) make their
product the world over, wherever it is consumed.

If anything, vertical farming should be able to produce the consistent "big
mac" equivalent of the tomato/lettuce/potato?

Am I incorrect in the sentiment of the capitalist argument here?

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pjc50
Amartya Sen's Nobel-prize-winning work on famine is probably the best read
here. He points out that the problem is rarely lack of food, but lack of
_claim on_ food. People end up unable to afford it, no matter how cheap it
might be. "Solutions" which involve heavy capital investment and depend on
imported items aren't going to make it cheaper.

It's even possible to end up with situations where food is destroyed because
it cannot economically be sold, while people are also starving. This is not
about food but about power.

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TheUndead96
Started reading their essay. This is incredibly interesting, I was not aware
of this.

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pjc50
Glad to be of service!

If you want another possibly transformational read, Hernando De Soto's _The
Other Path_ has a lot of interesting things to say about rule of law and
property rights.

