I don't think they invalidate the method, no. However, we're talking about building these structures in areas where the majority of people are not eating for survival.
Vertical Farms will be built where Vertical Buildings are built - cities. Cities contain a hugely disproportionate amount of western civilizations population and even more wealth. People in cities are generally paying for higher quality food than people in rural areas, so it seems rather asinine to construct vertical farms only to export the produce out of the city into poorer areas where hydroponic crops are more likely to be purchased.
Vertical farms would be far more likely to succeed if they were producing high quality foods, not low quality foods. Sell vine ripened tomatoes picked yesterday and you'll make a killing compared to the hydroponic tomatoes they would be selling. I've seen hydroponic tomatoes selling for 1/4 of the price of California vine ripened tomatoes (I live in ontario, we're the last stop, they're harvested like a month before they should be ripe). You should easily be able to make 8 times the amount selling 'harvested yesterday, vine ripened tomatoes' in a big city than you would hydroponic.
My contention isn't that vine ripened won't feed people. It's that they're planning on feeding the wrong people the wrong food which is just a market failure begging to happen. You might as well be trying to sell a Vegan some beef for how accurate they're targeting the local market.
You could get a luxury product, harvested within 10 miles of your home (beating the pants off of the 100 mile challenge) with as much freshness as farmers market produce and it's expected to be environmentally friendly, and could be made organic with far less risk of spoiling from pests and disease. All of these are huge sale points and none of them will be made with budget cost hydroponic crap.
If you built one of these, met all those marks, you'd be selling your produce to the local high end restaurants because your produce would be at least 2-3 days fresher.
Hydroponics is the equivalent of bottom-lineism in businesses. They're trying to reduce costs to boost profitability, rather than simply finding a way to raise the price that will keep people buying. Do you think Apple was looking at the bottom line when it decided to unibody aluminium shells? Or when they included a higher resolution screen?
Tech companies everywhere disregard the bottom line because they know people will pay for a superior product. Everyone here on HN knows people will pay for a superior product. Google had a superior product (not just technologically, but usability, etc. too) , and it nailed Yahoo that had poor search and poor usability.
Why sell an inferior product when you can sell a superior product, maximize your profit per sq ft not minimize it. Produce a tomato worth $4/lb not $0.99/lb-continuously on sale for 1/3 off. Make an eco-organic-super-fresh tomato and sell it for $8/lb and sell it to rich idiots.
Vertical Farms will be built where Vertical Buildings are built - cities. Cities contain a hugely disproportionate amount of western civilizations population and even more wealth. People in cities are generally paying for higher quality food than people in rural areas, so it seems rather asinine to construct vertical farms only to export the produce out of the city into poorer areas where hydroponic crops are more likely to be purchased.
Vertical farms would be far more likely to succeed if they were producing high quality foods, not low quality foods. Sell vine ripened tomatoes picked yesterday and you'll make a killing compared to the hydroponic tomatoes they would be selling. I've seen hydroponic tomatoes selling for 1/4 of the price of California vine ripened tomatoes (I live in ontario, we're the last stop, they're harvested like a month before they should be ripe). You should easily be able to make 8 times the amount selling 'harvested yesterday, vine ripened tomatoes' in a big city than you would hydroponic.
My contention isn't that vine ripened won't feed people. It's that they're planning on feeding the wrong people the wrong food which is just a market failure begging to happen. You might as well be trying to sell a Vegan some beef for how accurate they're targeting the local market.
You could get a luxury product, harvested within 10 miles of your home (beating the pants off of the 100 mile challenge) with as much freshness as farmers market produce and it's expected to be environmentally friendly, and could be made organic with far less risk of spoiling from pests and disease. All of these are huge sale points and none of them will be made with budget cost hydroponic crap.
If you built one of these, met all those marks, you'd be selling your produce to the local high end restaurants because your produce would be at least 2-3 days fresher.
Hydroponics is the equivalent of bottom-lineism in businesses. They're trying to reduce costs to boost profitability, rather than simply finding a way to raise the price that will keep people buying. Do you think Apple was looking at the bottom line when it decided to unibody aluminium shells? Or when they included a higher resolution screen?
Tech companies everywhere disregard the bottom line because they know people will pay for a superior product. Everyone here on HN knows people will pay for a superior product. Google had a superior product (not just technologically, but usability, etc. too) , and it nailed Yahoo that had poor search and poor usability.
Why sell an inferior product when you can sell a superior product, maximize your profit per sq ft not minimize it. Produce a tomato worth $4/lb not $0.99/lb-continuously on sale for 1/3 off. Make an eco-organic-super-fresh tomato and sell it for $8/lb and sell it to rich idiots.