The Case for Vertical Farming - Part Two

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

This week we’ve been reporting on the limitations of vertical farms, which have attracted millions in investment dollars, and exploring what about this way of farming has some people so excited. Yesterday we explored how vertical farms meet the demand for local, fresh, and year round produce. Today, we take a look at areas of the world that want to bolster their domestic food production. John Purcell is the CEO of Unfold, a startup that sells genetics and digital tools to vertical farms.

Purcell… “These are countries like Singapore across the middle east. They have huge capital reserves. I mean, you think about the middle east and Singapore, et cetera. These are countries that have capital. They also have pretty sophisticated electronics and higher tech industry. What don't they have? The ability to produce a huge amount of food domestically. So they see this as a huge opportunity. And another one that we're getting a lot of the conversations, and there's a level of interest in investment is the UK. You're thinking, UK? But think about Brexit, right? Where most of that produce is flowing from the Netherlands. It's flowing from Southern Spain. With Brexit there's differences in how that pricing happens, how the flow of goods is. So they see this again as a way to increase the domestic food production for products. And they had great brassica production there already, but for the broader spectrum of products that they want to grow.”

Tune in tomorrow for our final installment of the case for vertical farming.