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A comment on Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?. Parent comment

Re:Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture? by mac01021 on Friday July 06, 2018 @01:37AM (#17469136)
Would land and shipping both be cheap if we ceased to externalize a lot of the cost of each?

Both land use [1] and shipping [2] contribute significant fractions of our society's carbon budget.

[1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/285/5427/574

[2] https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/shipping-emission...

That said, I'm not so sure about 2-story, LED-lit warehouses for growing food either...

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Re:Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture? by stale2002 on Friday July 06, 2018 @02:59AM (#17469507)
Yes, it would still be cheap in comparison.

You are correct that there are externalities. But even if we priced in thise externalities, it would most currently NOT 100X the price (which is what would be required to make vertical farming cost competitive).

I would be extremely surprised if those externalities even came close to 2Xing the price of "normal" farming.

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Re:Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture? by foobar1962 on Friday July 06, 2018 @02:57AM (#17469499)
> Would land and shipping both be cheap if we ceased to externalize a lot of the cost of each?

No.

But neither would the energy and equipment used to do this vertical farming either.

IMHO it's only a "thing" because it can be presented as a disrupting-startup-venture to attract capital. Like those "farm-in-a-box" things.

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Re:Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture? by azernik on Friday July 06, 2018 @03:15AM (#17469576)
That energy and equipment is priced a lot better than land use, on average.
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