Have you considered the time when offices can be transformed to farming? The shift from office space to indoor farms is gaining much attention worldwide, including the U.S., Canada, and Australia. One such example came in September 2024 as the first indoor farm of its kind opened within a vacant building in Hamilton, Ohio. This U.S. start-up converted an old commercial building into a 200,000-square-foot (18,600 square meters) facility for agriculture. In Houston, Texas, employees are trying to fill the entire ground level of the historic 32-story Niels Esperson building with an indoor farm.
In some U.S. cities, one in four office spaces lies idle, and some startups are trying to give new life to these spaces. In indoor farms, lettuce, cucumbers, and herbs are some of the crops grown inside. One prominent example would be the Calgary Tower in Canada, completed in 1967, which now houses an entirely functional indoor farm. This indoor farm encompasses 6,000 square meters (65,000 square feet) and produces numerous crops such as strawberries, lettuce, and cucumbers.
This trend is not just limited to North America. Indoor farms are emerging all across the world, from Japan and Singapore to Dubai. These farms sometimes use more advanced technologies such as hydroponics, aquaponics, or aeroponics to cultivate crops in climate-controlled environments. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted vulnerabilities in the global food supply chain, making local solutions like these even more important. In 2021, vertical farming saw transactions worth $6 billion around the world, and it would be seen to be one of the biggest investment years for vertical farming.
Just when the world was starting to make a transition toward its post-pandemic future, some major startups began losing steam. Analysts believe this may be part of a passing phase as there is an evident growth in innovation in the post-pandemic era. There are many businesses in Canada and Australia that embrace remote and hybrid work, where owners of dead office spaces don't know how to utilize such properties. For the U.S., the percentage of vacant offices has exceeded 20%.
For one, explains Warren C. Jr., who heads the D.C. office of U.S. law firm ArentFox Schiff, this can be viewed as a not very expensive mode for repurposing vacant buildings. There is a host of other compelling reasons that explain a heightened interest in urban farming today. While supply chains have largely recovered from disruptions caused by COVID, factors such as climate change, geopolitical unrest, or strikes by farmers could completely disrupt it at any time. In such cases, a greater reliance on local food production facilities will be necessary.
Another environmental benefit of vertical farms is that typically, they consume only a fraction of the water used by traditional outdoor farms as noted by Dr. Ivan Fraser, professor of geography at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. They can produce more food per square mile. However, he notes that energy consumption is one of the major challenges of vertical farms since it uses electricity to power lighting, ventilation systems, smart sensors, and automated harvesting technologies. As long as renewable energy can be harnessed for these farms, they will probably outperform traditional farms in sustainability.
It is quite complex to ascertain the sustainability of indoor farms in terms of their environmental, social, and economic impacts, according to Jiangxiaowo Qiu, landscape ecologist at the University of Florida. Urban indoor farms are more efficient with regard to water usage, pest control, and greater yield per square foot of food produced, but have large energy consumption issues. Moreover, growing wheat, corn, or rice indoors remains unpractical, and most indoor farming operations focus on leafy greens and herbs.
As post-pandemic trends continue, it is likely that indoor farming will continue to expand in urban areas around the world. Cities have always been leery of unused, underutilized spaces, and if transformations like those in Arlington prove successful, other cities might follow suit in embracing this innovative farming model.