$14 salads? No wonder high-tech indoor farms fail in Detroit, critics say
In a few days, the purple LED lights that provide the life force to salad greens and herbs grown indoors at Planted Detroit’s vertical farm will go dark, and employees will be sent home.
Nina Ignaczak of Planet Detroit contributed to this report
Jena Brooker
Michigan Environment Watch
Bridge Michigan
July 28, 2023
Excerpt:
The two companies are among the latest in metro Detroit and Michigan attempting to grow produce indoors. The benefits of vertical farming are often touted as growing year-round. The farms maximize space to grow as much food as possible, use less water and reduce “food miles’ – the distance over which food is transported from producer to consumer.
But critics of the high-tech approach point out the method’s high capital and labor costs, energy-intensiveness and crop limitations. And traditional farmers question growing plants in a synthetic medium instead of soil.
“To me, without soil, you don’t get those micro and macro nutrients,” said Joseph Murray, a farmer at Detroit’s organic biodynamic-certified ROI Urban Farms. “You aren’t getting those little things that we don’t even know or understand fully about,” said Murrays, noting that vertical farming could be a solution for areas that don’t have a lot of land.
Despite these critiques, there’s been a surge in indoor farms globally – some estimates project that the vertical farming market will increase from $5.6 billion in 2022 to more than $35 billion by 2032.
But in Detroit, a city with ample vacant land (approximately 19 square miles), more than 2,000 urban gardens and farms, and a much lower median income than the national average, the benefits of growing vegetables indoors for sale at a high price point can be a tough sell.
