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SIMPAS equipment can apply multiple products Vertical farming isn’t necessarily even car-
in fields similar to the way a a printer dispenses bon neutral, although the climate impact
ink from ink cartridges, the companies say. The can be offset by the use of solar or wind
system uses software to control the application energy to power the LED lighting that
rate of each product on every row at every loca- replaces sunlight.
tion in the field.
Prospects: Help fill consumer demand
Fields thinks adoption of precision ag equip- for locally produced foods, while avoiding
ment will increase as the ag economy improves. some of the food safety risks associated
“I think growers are looking for more of a stable with field-grown crops.
ag economy in the coming years,” which will
spur adoption, he said. “That’s what we saw in Challenges: Demand for energy,
that commodity super-cycle from 2007 to 2012. and buildings and equipment require con-
You know, technology adoption just ran ram- siderable investment.
pant those years.”
Vertical farming may not provide a big part of
Precision ag also could yield benefits in animal the answer to mitigating climate change, but it
health; protecting food animals from disease can be an adaptation strategy.
makes them more efficient and can be a sig- “I think they are part of the climate solution,”
nificant way to reduce their carbon footprint,
according to a study by McKinsey and Co. says Henry Gordon-Smith, founder and CEO
of Agritecture, which advises clients on a wide
One example of precision ag equipment in range of urban and vertical farming projects.
animal health is an intelligent ear tag developed “I do believe they are pioneers of an aspect of
by Smartbow, an Austrian company acquired sustainable agriculture.”
by Zoetis in 2018. The tags allow a producer to
monitor the amount of time dairy cows spend But Gordon-Smith also does not believe human-
at the feed bunk or drinking water and that ity will be able to avert the effects of a changing
climate — longer and more widespread drought,
information allows the farmer to more quickly
identify cattle that may be ill. “When they’re off wild swings in weather patterns, and more
severe flooding, for example.
their daily averages that’s then you know some-
thing is up with the animal,” said Tim Betting- “It’s my belief that we have about seven to 10
ton, executive vice president and head of U.S. years to mitigate climate change and climate
operations for Zoetis. change disaster,” he says. “It’s not my belief that
we as human beings will mitigate that disaster.
But the smart tags face the same challenges that The future of vertical farming after that period
many other variations of precision ag have:
They need high-speed internet service. “We’ve is actually an adaptation strategy.”
been very supportive of the government’s rural As for vertical operations mitigating climate
broadband initiatives,” Bettington said. change, Gordon-Smith says if he were to guess
in 10 years about 20% of the vertical farming
VERTICAL FARMING companies will be leaders in sustainability and
the others “will just be corporations taking
Benefits: Requires less land, can reduce advantage of the fact that consumers need cer-
food waste while saving on transporta- tain products at a certain price, no matter what
tion-related carbon emissions by growing the weather is, and the supply chain has been
greens and vegetables closer to market. threatened.”
52 www.Agri-Pulse.com
