The Potential Of Vertically Farming Soy

Vertical farming has rapidly advanced in recent years. It offers a way to grow food that uses vastly less water, no pesticides, minimal waste and huge yields per growing area. It is also entirely independent of the weather and can be sited pretty much anywhere. As a result, vertical farming has a real claim to aid both the sustainability and the resilience of our food systems. 

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However, due to a combination of the high costs of set up and operation, and the significant energy use, it has thus far been limited to mostly leafy greens and some soft fruits. These challenges are equally as real as the potential gains. So it is often claimed that vertical farming can only play a small role in food systems. 

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However, if we were to really want to make an impact of the big food system issues - land use & change, biodiversity & conservation, resource use - we have to look to the big staple commodity crops. Of those, the one that we think is most likely to work in CEA and vertical farming is soy. It's not a massive plant, it's mostly leafy and green, that sort of thing. It's also grown in simply staggering quantities and the harms caused by that are well established.

 So if we could grow soy in vertical farms, we could drastically reduce the land & resource use impact of growing soy! We could even help alleviate the competition between land-sparing (e.g. agroforestry) and land-sharing (e.g. rewilding)

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The thing is, those challenges of cost and energy use aren't going to go away. In fact for a low-margin, low-profit crop like soy, they are even more of an issue. But, conversely, if we can solve these vertical farming & CEA challenges for soy, we can solve them for anything! 

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This project exists to advocate, collaborate and cooperate to facilitate the answering of those questions and overcoming of those challenges! If you can help with that, let us know!