How $30-a-Pound Micro-Broccoli Will Help Feed the World
AeroFarms is poised to be the first vertical-farming startup to be listed on the NASDAQ in the next month after it completes a merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp.
By Amanda Little
Bloomberg
Oct 2, 2021
Excerpt:
Yet the technology AeroFarms and other market leaders are pioneering very well might — especially in regions that have increasingly limited water and arable land. Aeroponic farms use up to 95% less water than in-field vegetable production and grow food 30% to 40% faster. They use as little as 0.3% of the land of a field farmer, according to AeroFarms Chief Executive Officer David Rosenberg: More food can be grown inside the space of a soccer goal net than can be grown in five soccer fields outdoors. The plants are grown without herbicides, fungicides or insecticides, gains for both the economics and human health. And while artificial lights will always be more energy intensive than sunshine, AeroFarms’ LED efficiency has increased 59% in five years.
The plant data gathered by its cameras and sensors, meanwhile, have driven rapid innovations: The company has seen a 23% increase in its yield-per-square-foot of indoor growing space in the past year alone, and has sped the grow cycle for baby leafy greens from 20 to 14 days — compared to 4 to 6 weeks in the field. Variables including light, moisture, nutrients, oxygen, CO2, and temperature can be monitored so precisely within a vertical farm that the flavors, nutrients and phenotypes of plants, in turn, can be manipulated. A few clicks on a keyboard can make the spinach more iron-rich, the strawberries sweeter or redder, the arugula more peppery and the cucumbers crunchier. Which means AeroFarms and others in this industry are well positioned to produce not just high-flavor and high-nutrient produce, but also high-profit ingredients for pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.
