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.
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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.