Infarm specialising in vertical farming and downsizing
In English town of Bedford, a vast new vertical farm opened in June 2022, where MPs has joined an opening event for the site. They heard details of how the facility would soon produce over 20 million plants every year.
The company name is Infarm, specialising in vertical farming in Europe. Over $600 million was raised in venture capital funding to set up the site, consisting of high tech warehouses packing LED lights to grow the plants, instead of natural fields or greenhouses.
https://www.ehn.org/amp/vertical-farming-has-found-its-fatal-flaw-2659002905
Despite all of this however, its founder has hit on hard times at the sites, and has announced job cuts of over 500 employees, which equals roughly more than half of its workforce.
Downsizing plans are now in effect across its European enterprise in countries such as the UK, France and Netherlands, turning to opportunities where business links were stronger in order to try and make a profit.
High electricity and construction fee on LED powered plant growing
So from openly optimistic, and upbeat to a more downbeat vibe, where exactly has it gone wrong for Infarm?
Dutch research firm RaboResearch seems to think that the vertical farm industry has been under pressure for quite some time now and electricity price rises have really hit them hard.
LED powered plant growing consumes a lot of electricity, and in the current economic climate across Europe, energy costs are rising by almost 60%, and it would appear that European vertical farms electrical running costs overall have risen from 25%, to around 40%.
It’s also difficult to keep investors interested in such enterprises when there are faster and easier profits to earn elsewhere. To fund building of such vertical farms requires a lot of financial investment.
One particular high tech greenhouse company AppHarvest in the US, has been struggling to find willing investors to find its operation, and seriously doubts whether it can continue to operate under such circumstances.
It’s also consumers who are suffering and looking to more affordable alternatives which are the mainstay crops of vertical farms. Such produce grows fast under LED lighting and is usually more expensive because of short shelf life.
Cindy van Rijswick, a strategist at the Dutch research firm RoboResearch said:
“The European market is a difficult place for vertical farming because there’s so much competition from crops that are grown in fields or greenhouses,”
It’s often thought that vertical farms would be better suited to countries where energy costs are considerably less, and outdoor climate limit what can be grown there like the Middle East. Most of these Middle Eastern countries import around 85% of all their foodstuffs, and 56% of their vegetables.
Infarm wants to focus on locations that have an increasing need for food production, because it’s more profitable and easier to find buyers. Coincidentally one of the world’s largest vertical farms has just recently opened in Dubai, 3 times as big as the UK Infarm facility in Bedford.
However, times are tough for vertical farms sited outside of the Middle Est. Vertical farms startup Glowfarms, started by Ben Pieterse in 2020. He was successful in raising £750,000 to build a farm in the Netherlands before the energy crisis hit.
His budget for electricity costs had increased nearly 6 fold. Money dried up and funding efforts were unsuccessful, and it’s doors closed in November 2022.
Vertical farming has big carbon footprint
Vertical farming technology hasn’t really transformed agriculture in any dynamic or meaningful way despite the industry advertising itself as a more sustainable way to grow produce.
In reality though, all the electricity amounts to quite a big sized carbon footprint. It would be a fine idea in principle if all our electricity was generated from renewables, but that’s not the current world we are living in right now.
Vertical farms do use much less water however, so countries starved of such resources are much more interested in the technology. “I hoped that the impact of vertical farming could and would be bigger than it currently is.” Pieterse says.
The energy crisis hasn’t been kind to the vertical farm industry at all, and showed some of its fundamental flaws. Eventually energy prices will drop again, but who can say exactly when, and the LED powered vertical farm industry is always going to be vulnerable to such price fluctuations.
The experiment is nor completely over for vertical farms however, there’s consensus that the technology will eventually end up having an impact, but not exactly clear what that will be right now.
LED powered technology could team up with traditional farming methods at some point to accelerate growth, or increase plant yields. Let’s look to the future, and remain hopeful for a future of sustainable green LED light farms around the world.
Source: weird.co.uk
