Humans have been farming for the last several millennia, but most of the advancements in agriculture have occurred in recent centuries. These have ranged from machinery and equipment like tractors and combines to chemical fertilizers and pest-resistant crops.
As the technology progressed so did crop productivity. An ox in the old times could till the farm at the rate of half acre a day. Modern tractors can do the same at a lightning-fast rate of one acre an hour. This multiplied the scale of the land used for farming activities.
Farming has transformed humans from being hunter-gatherers to settlers. With more food available, settlements and civilizations emerged, the population started increasing. Now, an increase in food supply did not solely lead to more humans on the planet. But, it is one of the several factors like medical advancements, and improved living conditions, that contributed to the population growth.
We went from a global population of 3 billion in the 1960s to over 7 billion in 2020. The current growth rate of the population has put us on a path to reach a whopping 10 billion by 2050.
To feed this growing population more and more land will need to be cultivated. However, the land is a limited resource on our planet and we are running out of it. To accommodate for these increased agricultural activities more and more forests are being chopped down. This has caused tremendous harm to the environment and loss of natural wildlife habitat.
Also, agricultural activities hog 70% of all the water use in the world. The more land we use, the more water we will need. Natural disasters like droughts have damaging effects with the one in 2012 affecting 80% of the agricultural land in the United States. Drought only comes in third behind other severe weather events like cyclones and hurricanes that cause devastating effects on farming activities.
Technology has helped us in the past to overcome these challenges and increase crop yield. From Irrigation systems and developing plant breeds that are drought-resistant to building accurate weather forecasting devices, we have conquered the challenges thrown our way.
But with land and water resources being stretched to their limit, and climate change taking a turn for the worse, feeding the growing population of the world requires a different technological perspective.
Controlled Environment Agriculture May be the Answer
In the traditional agricultural cycle, a farmer prepares the soil, sows the seed, and then hopes the season brings favorable weather to support a good harvest. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) takes the weather’s unpredictability out of the picture by moving farming indoors.
As the name suggests, CEA controls the environmental factors that plants grow in. Variables like temperature, humidity, nutrients, and light can be monitored and adjusted to create the perfect growing conditions for any crop.
These CEA companies operate with the precision—and, eventually, the scale—of an industrial consumer goods factory. Some of the big players in CEA are located in gigantic warehouses, which, an unaware eye, won’t be able to tell the difference with the former. The only exception is that these warehouses churn out fresh produce, hence they could also be called Plant Factories.
The image below explains the number of different categories that fall under the CEA umbrella.
The common factor among these multiple methods of growing food indoors is regulating the environment in which the plants grow. Each of these methods has its own benefits that make indoor farming more feasible and lucrative as the farming of the future.
The edge over traditional farming
Sustainable: Use 90% less water than traditional farming.
Space efficient: Indoor farms can be installed in densely populated areas in the same footprint as a high-rise building or smaller.
More yield: A two-acre vertical farm produces more than traditional farms produce in 720 acres.
More Control: Can easily dial in environmental factors needed for optimal plant growth in each stage of the lifecycle.
No pesticides: The controlled environment makes it possible to prevent pests and insects from reaching the plants.
Closer to the consumer: Indoor farms range in size from refrigerator-sized Gropods to shipping container sizes that will fit in a car lot to warehouse-sized factories that fit in a corner of a city.
CEA Limitations
High Costs: The initial investment and capital costs to build large structures for indoor farms —and the technology that goes into them—need a lot of financial backing.
More control is not always good: Adding more variables to the equation gives more things to worry about, it means more numbers to crunch to get the right balance.
Energy consumption: The amount of energy indoor farms consume is colossal. Competing with free solar energy available outdoors is a highly biased game.
Limited variety: Current versions of CEA can grow types of leafy greens like lettuce, arugula, and kale, as well as some fruit varieties like strawberries and tomatoes. It is difficult to grow staple crops like wheat and rice.
Increasing Venture Capitalist Interest
Despite the high intial costs, several warehouse-sized plant factories have gained significant attention from VCs over the past few years. In the vertical farming space, SoftBank-backed Plenty raised its series D funding round, and New Jersey-based Aerofarms has filed to go public with a SPAC deal.
Not all indoor farms are warehouses, some greenhouse companies like Cincinnati-based 80 Acre Farms raised $160 million, New York-based Gotham Greens and Bright Farms have rapid expansion plans with $87 million and $100 million respectively in fresh funding.
The greenhouse grower Appharvest that started with growing tomatoes, intends to make the Appalachia region in the midwest, the AgTech capital of the world and went public to raise $475 million with a valuation of $1billion.
Then there are some medium-sized companies like Freight Farms that raised $15 million giving you the ability to indoor farm in a shipping container from your backyard. Some smaller startups like Gropod make it easy to fit an indoor farm under the counter in your kitchen.
Although a nascent field with many startups vying for the VC funds, all these investments show there is rising investor confidence in indoor farming space across different categories.
Future is Indoors
Although indoor farming has been around since the beginning of the 20th century, right now, I believe it is at a pivotal point in history to become the future of food.
With depleting natural resouces to grow food and the dagger of climate change hanging above our heads. Indoor farming can be a possible solution for sustainable food production to feed the growing global populaton of tomorrow.
Big box grocery stores like Whole Foods and Albertsons are already being supplied by these indoor farms to complement the tradional farming supply. With billions of dollars being invested in this space, it is gaining main stream traction.
And although, the technlogy is progressing, but there may be a long way before row crops like corn and soybean are grown indoors to become economically feasible, and energy-efficient. But I still believe, THIS IS A START.
In the coming weeks, we will delve deeper into the nitty-gritty details of how indoor farms work and how they could shape the way food is produced in the future.
Curious to learn more? Let’s get on this journey together.
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Is the future of food indoors?
En qué medida la producción de alimentos en interiores puede ser escalable y rentable a largo plazo?
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