But I don't think it's the same.
There's going to be an inflection point where the cost to transport lettuce from Mexico and California is going to be more than the cost of some vertical farm down the street.
There's also this slow drumbeat of "Save the Planet!" and "Oil is da DEBIL Bobby!". Making stuff local and "sustainable" is marketable - even at a premium. There's a reason people go to local farmers markets.
I can't say you're not wrong that "it's for the weed, man"... but I think you're limiting yourself if you think that's the ONLY reason - or even the biggest reason.
How sure are you about that? Buildings are expensive, and you can fuel up trucks with solar arrays.
No matter how automated 95% of the journey is, the last mile will require someone to be there and do deliveries. In theory local producers have less coordination problems with their consumers.
Or the store does some kind of delivery, but that's no easier or harder because of producer location.
You might think it is for marijuana but you miss the point. Self suffiency is something we should strive for, we shouldn't be dependent on other places for food or shelter or water, we should produce those things locally.
If you think ahead even more, this is important for space travel and colonizing other worlds or even different parts of the world.
This should be an open standard and shouldn't be something people can't afford. This could change how people get food and drastically adverse the effects of being in a food desert.
So tptacek is correct that a farm inside a grocery store does not solve grocery affordability for the poor, because the problem is due to transportation/access, not the cost of the goods.
The bridge between these two views would maybe be if there was a solution of vertical farming that used little real estate and was able to set up a vertical farm in a poor area and had minimal real estate footprint/low rent costs.
Paper on Food Deserts in Chicago (or just google "food deserts chicago"): http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/IL-FoodDeserts-2011.pdf
I'm not sure if you shop mostly in Whole Foods or buy individually plastic-wrapped bell peppers at Trader Joes, but go to a Mexican grocery store some time and fill a cart full of green things. Vegetables are very cheap.
Freshness has got nothing to do with it, the product has to be dried in a well ventilated area.
I'd think it's very similar to tobacco. Vape for tobacco doesn't really expire, it's just the niccotine. And cigs keep for a long time. They get brittle over time, as do cigars, so I would think it's very similar. Again I'm not an expert, I just live in a state where it's common.
I'd guess that security and surrounds might be an issue for growing an in-demand product too? Doubt lettuce farms suffer too many break-ins!
http://globalnews.ca/news/3356810/romaine-calm-hamilton-poli...
It's also a good protection against theft and vandalism as well as preventing spreading in to the wild. There might also be legal requirements that prevent outdoors production.
Or is the goal to get acquihired the same way small tech companies get acquired by giants?
It seems they'll run into the same problems that they are running in now growing herbs against large scale producers.
Like the post above you said, economies of scale will grow far quicker on fields in the middle of nowhere because of how cheap land is.