Maximum Yield USA May 2017 | Page 72

trends & technology V ertical farming, the practice of growing crops in high density configurations in controlled environments, is the Wild West of modern agriculture. In the past decade, hundreds of vertical farmers around the world have sidelined the concept’s sci-fi roots and built facilities capable of growing high-quality crops closer to market in resource-conscious ways. But like any new industry, failure is inevitable. Though tragic, the failed farms offer one glowing benefit: they allow future farmers to learn and avoid potential missteps. The world got a valuable glimpse into three failed farms in February during the first annual Aglanta conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The industry commentator blog Agritecture hosted a unique panel titled “An Examination of Shuttered Vertical Farming Facilities.” The panel provided a platform for three unique case studies with one overlapping theme: tales of why they failed. The panelists included representatives from fallen vertical farms: Paul Hardej, co-founder of FarmedHere; Mike Nasseri, harvest supervisor at LocalGarden; and Matt Liotta, CEO of PodPonics. The three took turns weighing in on several questions regarding the history and ultimate end of their farms. In this article, we’ll examine each panelist’s perspective to illuminate three important reasons that vertical farms fail. d oo ut f b row ogy, . ” g er nol oth h t ei tech o b n ca lop n’t d s r e deve uld m o r r “Fa o ey sh th 70 grow cycle A common pitfall of many vertical farms is attempting to both grow food for market while productizing and selling the technology they’re using to grow their food. New farmers must understand they have only one goal: Sell good food. Everything else comes second. The more time, attention, and money spent trying to productize the system, the less time a grower has to delight their customers with fresh, local food. The same goes with decisions about equipment used to accomplish this goal. Unfortunately, we’ve seen dozens of hard-working farmers invest their time, energy, and financial resources into half-baked ideas that fail, taking their money and dreams of starting a farm down at the same time. The bottom line: Farmers can either grow food or develop technology, but they shouldn’t do both. Attempting to do both, as shown by all three panelists, ends poorly. Farmers wasting time on unproven systems or tinkering with their own tech instead of acquiring customers will ultimately end up out of business due to losing sight of their core objective: Selling food.