A Subway Station in Seoul Doubles as a Smart Vegetable Garden

Although this all sounds great, vertical farming isn’t a perfect system. Bloomberg points out that vertical farming can use as much as 90% less water compared to traditional methods and also reduces emissions created when plowing fields, weeding, harvesting, and transporting crops. On the flip side, it uses a lot more energy than traditional methods.

In vertical farms, lights need to be on for 12 to 16 hours a day. In the winter, companies must keep the heat on as well. This means that this type of farming can be a lot more expensive than traditional methods. One way to lower energy-related carbon emissions—and ease the financial burden—is by relying on solar power, which has become more widespread and cheap in recent years. Distributed systems like rooftop solar, in particular, could be tied to vertical farms. But the world has a long way to go when it comes to installing enough solar, wind, and other renewable energy capacity to meet everyone’s needs, let alone the needs of vertical farms.

Vertical farming is also not suited for feeding the entire world. Structural changes are needed to prepare agriculture to meet the food demand of a growing population as well as the rising threat of climate change to production. Researchers have proposed a series of fixes from the field to the dinner plate to shore up our food system. Among them are reducing fertilizer use, cutting down on food waste, and increasing the role of vegetables in our diets.