For years, much of the conversation around vertical farming has focused on what can be grown indoors. Ryan Douglas, Founder of Ryan Douglas Cultivation, argues that proving a crop can be grown indoors is very different from proving that it should. "Maybe the next phase of vertical farming should focus less on competing with conventional agriculture and greenhouses and more on applications where a completely controlled environment provides value that clearly justifies its cost," he says.

"Consider a vertical farm growing leafy greens in a temperate climate. Leafy greens are relatively low-light, cool-weather crops, and for much of the year the conditions they need already exist outside," he says. "While a greenhouse can take advantage of sunlight and outside air for cooling and dehumidification, a vertical farm does the opposite, blocking out the sun, paying to recreate it with LEDs, then mechanically cooling and dehumidifying the environment."

Where control earns its cost
Northern Canada offers an extreme example. Some communities experience short summers followed by long periods of extreme cold and limited sunlight, and they rely on produce shipped long distances, which raises prices, exposes deliveries to disruption, and cuts shelf life. "Comparing the production cost of an indoor head of lettuce with one grown outdoors thousands of miles away doesn't capture the entire equation," Ryan says. "A controlled indoor farm may still be expensive, but it's solving a problem that carries a real cost."

Geography is not the only place where greater control justifies greater investment, according to Ryan. Plant propagation is another. Commercial growers increasingly depend on clean, uniform starter plants, and where disease-free material, biosecurity, and consistency are critical, a highly controlled indoor environment can provide value. A production chain might begin with tissue culture, move into indoor vertical propagation, and then transition plants into a greenhouse for finishing. "In that scenario, vertical farming isn't competing with the greenhouse, but improving it," Ryan says. "Maybe the future of vertical farming isn't the entire farm. Perhaps it's one highly controlled piece of a much larger production system."

Testing crops without assuming the outcome
Some crops seem mismatched with vertical farming altogether, like cotton, which would appear to be an unlikely candidate. Ryan says that he recently spoke with a team in Portugal experimenting with cotton in a completely closed environment.

"The economics today are challenging, and their initial work suggests indoor cotton would need to sell for considerably more than conventionally grown cotton," Ryan says. Still, the experiments identified advantages: indoor production improves fiber quality, with standard varieties approaching the quality of premium ones, the fiber grows whiter and reduces or eliminates the need for bleaching, and recirculating irrigation systems improve water and fertilizer efficiency.

"None of that proves indoor cotton will become commercially viable, but we're learning things about the crop we wouldn't learn by growing it the same way we always have," Ryan says. "The mistake would be dismissing indoor cotton because it cannot compete with outdoor cotton today. The equally serious mistake would be assuming that because we can grow it indoors, the economics will inevitably work." Land availability, water, and production technology will change, he notes, and an application that makes little economic sense today could look different in ten years.

Repurposing what already exists
The industry has already invested enormous capital in sophisticated indoor cultivation facilities, and while some have since closed, buildings and their electrical, HVAC, and growing infrastructure still exist.

"Reopening a failed facility with the same crop and business model may accomplish very little," Ryan says. Instead of asking how to get a vertical farm growing again, he suggests a different question: What agricultural problem is this controlled environment uniquely equipped to solve? "The answer might be leafy greens, but it could also be propagation, specialty crops, or something we haven't seriously considered yet."

"Vertical farming doesn't need to replace outdoor agriculture or greenhouses, but it does need to earn its place alongside them," Ryan says. "We've demonstrated that we can grow an extraordinary range of crops inside controlled environments. The more important question now is where we should."

Ryan moderated "Vertical farming: How to stay ahead in a fast-changing industry" with Oishii at GreenTech North America on September 24 at 10:40 am.

For more information:
Ryan Douglas Cultivation
Ryan Douglas
[email protected]
www.douglascultivation.com