Vertical farming helps offer greater revenue and profitability when you have all the right pieces in place – but what are they, and how do they best fit into your business?
Gina Mercier is IGS’ Senior Account Manager. Gina loves getting to know growers and business heads worldwide, working closely with customers, appreciating their unique challenges and seeing how our vertical farming technology can help solve them.
Vertical farming addresses many pressing issues in today’s agricultural landscape. We’re faced with growing enough food to feed an ever-growing population, while also contending with a changing climate and the various ways this can challenge traditional ways of growing. Dry summers make harvesting crops at the pace we’ve grown accustomed to near impossible, while unpredictable storms and flash floods have the power to halt yields in their tracks.
Vertical farming can help – in some cases more than others. We don’t need to go back to the drawing board, but it’s important to understand exactly when vertical farming is the right solution. Vertical farming offers growers higher yield, climate-resilient solutions, reduced reliance on external supply chains, and, ultimately, control over their growing environment which should help them profit in a challenging market.
We’ve been designing, manufacturing, and supplying vertical farming technology since 2013. Over the years, we’ve worked with growers to understand what conditions allow them to succeed
What to grow
It makes sense to target crops whose traditional growing methods may be either increasing in cost, or becoming increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change (or both). Leafy greens, such as basil, and starter plants, like lettuce plugs, are perfect examples of crops which grow really well in a Total Controlled Environment Agriculture setting (TCEA)
Let’s look at basil. Growing it in a glasshouse offers roughly 5 to 7 harvests per year, whereas in an open field that number significantly drops to between 1 and 3. Vertical farming offers growers up to 20 harvests per year, regardless of external weather conditions (which can significantly hamper the other two methods).
Lettuce, whether grown seed-to-harvest or as part of a hybrid approach with greenhouse or open-field agriculture, also pairs well with vertical farming. Baby leaf lettuce takes anywhere from 30 to 45 days to grow solely in an open field or a greenhouse. Vertical farming technology can get the same results between 14 and 25 days, helping growers to significantly increase yield and, in turn, profitability in an ever-competitive market. You’ve also got the option to grow lettuce plugs using vertical farming technology, transplanting them to an open field or greenhouse at the optimal point and making them far more resilient to pests and disease – this can increase yields significantly.
Our technology can enable growth cycles up to six times faster than more traditional open field methods. When paired with low energy prices and good market price it’s a clear avenue for growers to succeed and profit using innovative, climate-resilient technology.
Learn more about the different use cases for our technology.
.webp)
Where to grow
Location is paramount when it comes to successful vertical farming. There’s been a lot of conversation about the concept of urban agriculture in recent years, and whether it’s the solution to reducing food miles and providing urban (and in turn, large) populations with planet-friendly access to fresh produce. But let’s strip it back. Can already packed city centres, where space is at a premium, really supply enough food to feed their populace? In most cases, the answer is no – but so-called ‘peri-urban’ spaces on the edge of major cities and hubs might.
In food production, the bulk of the work (packaging, distribution, sorting, grading and processing) takes place outside of city centres. It simply doesn’t make sense to move this process further away and add on additional food miles and costs. We can, however, flip this on its head, and grow the plants themselves next to these key logistical hubs. This drastically reduces food miles and brings around significant environmental and financial benefits.
Peri-urban spaces also have the added advantage of being prime spots for power generation. This allows businesses to take advantage of lower energy prices and co-locate next to the point of energy generation, simultaneously giving them the chance to sell on any excess energy back to the grid at a higher price. This approach works particularly well in climates which have large amounts of sunlight throughout the year, providing renewable energy in abundance.
The GigaFarm model and working with complementary technologies
Quite simply, a GigaFarm is a vertical farm capable of growing over a billion plants each year. This model can be enhanced when using vertical farming alongside other progressive technologies. As part of our partnership with Empire State Greenhouses (ESG) in upstate New York, our technology is set to work alongside renewable energy generation and Food-Energy-Waste (FEW) systems. This will work to eliminate a third of the cost of food deriving from energy, using 100 IGS Growth Towers to sustainably produce 6.4 million pounds of fresh produce annually. This will allow ESG scale production and meet food security head-on, taking tonnes of C02 out of the atmosphere and helping to decarbonise agriculture.
The GigaFarm model pairs circular, progressive technologies with automated, efficient vertical farming solutions, allowing growers to operate in climates which might not seem immediately suited to crop production.
Where IGS fits in
Vertical farming can be the cornerstone of modern food production if growers focus on the right crops, and make use of suitable locations. It’s a sure-fire way to reduce operational costs on harmful chemicals, cut out wasted resources and make use of food waste, while embedding sustainable technology on a scale large enough to meet the great challenges of our time.
IGS has been designing award-winning vertical farming technology for more than a decade. Along the way, we’ve worked with growers across the world, focusing on supporting them to grow consistently high-quality plants. This has seen us deploy everywhere from the heart of Europe, through to the Middle East with our partner ReFarm (as well as our deal with ESG signed in December 2024).
We’re here to help businesses see where vertical farming can slot into their operations. With over a decade of bringing together the best of crop science, hardware and software engineering, data science, and agronomy, we provide holistic expertise so growers can make data-led decisions with growth at the heart.
Sign up to our upcoming ‘How to succeed in vertical farming’ webinar to learn more.
.webp)
