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Jane Marsh, Environment.co By Jane Marsh, Environment.co|February 15, 2024
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Indoor farming has become more prevalent in recent years following increased demand for fresh produce and rising concerns about the ecological impact of traditional agriculture. Warehouses present the perfect interior environment for farming — spacious, adequate protection from harsh weather, and more manageable growing conditions. Will these become the farmlands of the future? Only time will tell, but the potential is undeniable, as are the benefits.

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The biggest advantages include the following.

1. Efficient Use of Space

Conventional farming requires significant land space. Wholesale vegetable farms require at least 40 acres of fertile land on average. Bringing the process indoors allows for more efficient use of available space, maximizing food production per square foot. For instance, stacking crops vertically can accommodate up to 10 times as many plants as a regular horizontal farm with similar space dimensions. Examples of vertical farms that utilize repurposed warehouses include AeroFarms, Gotham Greens, and Bowery.

2. Year-Round Food Production

Controlled growing environments in warehouses enable the cultivation of seasonal foods all year round. This helps ensure consistent supply and shorter harvest times without compromising produce quality. Consumers can then enjoy their favorite fresh fruits and greens regardless of the season and without shipping them in from far away.

3. Adverse Weather Protection

Extreme weather can severely affect traditional farming — freezing temperatures stifle plant growth, droughts cause crops to die, excessive rain damages the soil and so on. Growing crops in climate-controlled warehouses protects them from inclement weather so such natural catastrophes don’t impact crop yields and ensure predictable harvests.

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4. Sustainable Practices

Warehouse farmlands can make agriculture more efficient and sustainable. The reduced reliance on soil and water means less natural resource consumption. Additionally, indoor farming allows farmers to cultivate crops in urban areas, reducing transportation costs and carbon emissions from long-distance shipping. Lastly, warehouse farms don’t require toxic chemicals and pesticides that cause greenhouse gas emissions since the controlled environment naturally keeps pests and weeds out.

Key Drivers of Warehouse Farmlands

Indoor farming shows great promise in tackling today’s biggest agricultural challenges. However, there are several critical factors to consider when setting it up.

  • Warehouse Efficiency and Productivity Just as regular tillable land needs optimization for farming, warehouses must also have the necessary features to operate efficiently and support optimal growing conditions. This includes designing the space ergonomically, installing new equipment and creating a warehouse safety culture, among other things.
  • Adequate Financing Setting up a warehouse farm is capital intensive — plus, farmers also need sufficient financing to cover operating costs. For instance, even a small indoor farm can have an electricity bill of over $100,000 yearly. Switching to renewable energy sources like solar and geothermal power plants can help lower monthly expenses, but installing these systems requires substantial spending, too.
  • Automation Technologies Indoor farms require a combination of robotics, machine learning, Internet of Things sensors and cloud computing to function as intended. These technologies are central to creating and maintaining an optimized growing environment. Employing these systems can also reduce the need for manual labor and associated costs.

Warehouses Are Becoming the New Farmlands

All over the world, farmers are converting wide, spacious buildings into farmlands capable of feeding their surrounding communities. This represents an important step toward ensuring food security and lowering carbon emissions, for which the agriculture industry has received a lot of flak in recent years.

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CEAg World addresses the market trends, challenges, innovations and business implications for the controlled environment industry through in-depth coverage and conversations with emerging and leading perspectives across the ecosystem. It brings thought leadership and context to the expanding global business of growing food under cover and the connective tissues that facilitate its viability and acceleration. Learn more about CEAg World here >


Jane Marsh is the Editor-in-Chief at Environment.co.

Environment.co is dedicated to bringing its readers the latest news on climate policy, renewable energy, and conservation.

See all author stories here.

Leave a Reply

Avatar for Joseph R Heckman, PhD Joseph R Heckman, PhD says:
February 15, 2024 at 9:53 am

What about energy demand? Will farmland be covered with solar panels and windmill to produce energy to grow plants in warehouses?

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Avatar for William Sczesny William Sczesny says:
February 15, 2024 at 10:04 am

We have had a 10,000 SF gro house providing herbs and sprouts to 300 grocery stores.
The name of our company is BigYieldGrowers.com.. we are in a municipal power grid which reduces our electric bill. We use condensate from the AC units to water the plants .

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Avatar for robert tornello robert tornello says:
February 17, 2024 at 9:30 am

As a commercial grower for decades, I too got caught up in the hype of what is outlined in this story, efficient use of square footage, controlled environments, potentially less insect and disease pressure, and the demand regionally for such product.
What is unfortunate are the numbers, as numbers don’t lie, people do. Before diving into the facts about companies of all sizes and backgrounds, why have most of these companies in the industry gone bankrupt, it because they failed to do the math.
Farmland even outside a major city at X per square foot is planted seasonally and uses seasonal help, they use the sun and occasional irrigation, and conventional or organic practices, and based on there row planting, and choice of field pac boxes may have 14-16.00 per case of 24 heads.
In a warehouse, or hybrid greenhouse where supplemental lighting is used to extend the photoperiods a 10,000 square foot building will require 1200 Amps 3 phase power at minimum, it will require special irrigation and plumbing, lights that must be LED at 4-800.00 per fixture as HID lightings heat gain and placement will desiccate foliage, and all the mechanical equipment and rolling rack systems that create the stacked efficiency of square foot usage.
So at the end of the day dirt farmer, has low overhead, and high potential for environmental loss, with a return of 30-50% gross based on seasonal availability of harvested mono crop. He makes money on per acre harvest.
Hydroponic production, harvests off ladders or lifts in multi story grow rooms. The channels or trays must be removed, and sanitized and returned to location, irrigation lines must be flushed and sanitizers used to avoid pathogen and fungal re-introduction to the new crops, everything in that grow requires maintenance, and laborers are not migrant per box seasonal, they are trained, they get benefits, have high WC rates working of lifts, and require PPE equipment per GAP or Primus audits in order to sell direct. Water must be reverse osmosis, and EC (electro conductivity) constantly managed and controlled by a computer and dosing system. The list goes on and on.
At the end of the day, the field farmer is dealing with seasonal pricing that reflects all the other countries growing produce with $5 per day labor, and subsidized air freight pallet positions to land anywhere in the world and $6-8.00 a case, who makes the money BROKERS and National resellers. Now the dirt farmer even conventionally grown still has some organic benefits of soil, it’s a base that retains some mineral content, where water as a base retains none after time. The cost per head seasonally adjusted in high tech farming puts case harvested product of similar size and weight at 20-28.00 per box, some even higher.
The farmer, with a manager and field hands either makes some money or covers his nut. The hydroponic grower with college grad engineers, and trained GAP certified full time planting, harvesting, sanitation and maintenance crews using very expensive equipment can’t compete as the per square foot cost of infrastructure alone can be 200-300+ square foot. Growing costs with utilities and 15-25.00 hr. labor can easily reach 1.00 per sq foot, depreciation on the equipment, cost of the feeds, and sanitizers and PPE for all employees, clean rooms and refrigeration and packing and shipping cost more, and are quite expensive. All the brilliant minds that brought us sustainable indoor farming are using comparison numbers that are bogus as they are selling a concept, that could work fine subsidized by the government at an arctic circle exploration center or colonizing the moon, but here on earth, the numbers tell the truth, that is one of a reality cocktail for these multimillion dollar failed investment grows, do the math first, know your market, have advance contracts for more than one season, and if your going to attempt this, wait, and then buy a facility at the bankruptcy sale, and run it with family, keep it small and manageable. Then you have a 50/50 chance of breaking even.

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Avatar for Doug Bo Doug Bo says:
March 12, 2024 at 11:41 am

Spot on ^^^

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