Earlier quoted context omitted.
Average cost of acre of farm land in US: $3160 Average cost of a cheap warehouse in US (this is being generous as the cost is likely far higher for a vertical farm) $20 square ft [1] Thus, Land/building cost standard farming method: $3160 per acre[2] Land/building cost of equivalent vertical farm: $871200 per acre Which is 275x higher. Once again, using warehouse costs is being generous to vertical farms. It's likely…
You're ignoring the fact that vertical farms have layers. In this article, they are growing 14 layers, so to match the output of one acre of farmland requires 1/14 of an acre of building, if all else is the same. Also, vertical farms can produce 365 days a year, which conventional farms can not. Other factors such as precise control of climate, nutrients, and pests will also increase the output of vertical farms. I t…
I also used 20 per sq foot which is an gross underestimation for actual cost per square foot of a vertical farm to compensate for this. I wouldn't be surprised if each "layer" itself has a per square foot cost that is a significant fraction of the equivalent cost of a farmland sq foot.
> Also, vertical farms can produce 365 days a year, which conventional farms can not.
Vegetables are grown in California 7-8 months a year. So there is room here for an advantage to vertical farms, but is it really a significant advantage? Most CA growers own or lease land in AZ and CA and flip flop between the two as the season dictates, so there is there no real advantage here in terms of availability and as I already outlined the cost is far below a vertical farm so if you can't give vertical farm a price or available advantage what advantage do they have?
And to answer my own previous question, for all the "shop local" trends out there, transportation costs are minimal, which is why you can buy produce from even another country at cut-rate prices, so these are probably not a big factor. I would guess the most significant promise of vertical is probably less inputs. Inputs traditionally cost more than land in farming (I actually do know about this as I work for an AG company and have been in the precision Ag industry for 10 years). However, inputs don't cost (200x/150x/100x/50x/whatever number you want to go with for vertical farm land cost multiplier) more than land cost. I guess the argument can be made that I just put everything in cost terms and not in some sort of ecological benefit terms but that is just the world we live in, solar didn't blow up because people started to care, it blew up because it became economically viable.