The Trendy, Spendy Future of Tech-Enabled Indoor Farming
5th June 2022
For years, proponents have hailed indoor growing techniques like hydroponics (growing plants in nutrient-rich water rather than soil) and vertical farming (packing rows of plants beneath grow lamps inside of a warehouse, basement, or retrofitted shipping container) as ways to “democratize farming” for anyone who wants to give growing a go, regardless of whether they own any fertile land. And the indoor farming business is booming. In January, the commercial farming company Square Roots opened its fourth facility of shipping container farms in Wisconsin. The company says the collection of containers are capable of producing a couple million packages of plants—leafy greens like lettuce and herbs—per year. Walmart got in the indoor farming game in January when it invested in Plenty, another commercial vertical farming company. Some companies have even positioned themselves as one-stop shops for farm production, all packed into a single unit.
All they’ve managed so far is trendy low-rise crops like kale and lettuce, maybe some potatoes and strawberries. I’m waiting for them to do something significant with bulk row crops like wheat, oats, barley, rye, and maize, or pole crops like beans and tomatoes.
(And don’t get me started on tree fruits like apples, pears, lemons, oranges, peaches….)