hotelbravo722

Its only popular because the cold war happened and there was a widespread campaign in the US to ingrain neo-liberal economic thinking into the general public. Its no different then people in Europe in the dark ages not being able to see anything besides the divine right of kings as the form of rule. At some point though something comes along forcing us to question it all and thats when the flood gates open. For Europe it was the black plague, for us it was the 08 financial crises.

It is being discussed but in the context of Economics. Neo-liberal economic theory presupposes an economy that is infinitely growing and infinitely consuming. That is running head-on to the fact that there are natural limits to our consumption. Politicians, financial/business leaders and mainstream economists have skirted by talking about serious issues when it comes to health, society and equality by saying "growth will even it all out". Now growth hasn't even things out its just made inequality worse, our planets biosphere is collapsing and our leaders have no answers, why? Because they have been brainwashed by sudo-science and fairy tales of infinite growth and wealth.

People are discussing solutions to this within the context of Degrowth, ecological economics and doughnut economics. However those theories are not popular to the mainstream because it accepts limits and advocates for things like wealth redistribution and limits on wealth, and the extremely rich/powerful don't like that.

So I am currently switching careers into vertical farming and have done a lot of work and research on this subject and here is just a bit of my 2 cents.

• Vertical farming can be less water intensive then traditional farming. Combined with an aquaculture system it can have negligible to no water loss which is great for arid climates.
• Hydroponic/Aquaponic systems have a huge upfront cost yet a comparably negligible year over year cost.
• This method has proven perfect for growing certain fruits, vegitables and leafy greens however has shown so far that its not the best for growing things like fruiting trees or staple crops like corn/wheat.
• Financing for vertical farms are virtually non-existant. So generally you have to go to private equity for financing. This is a problem as vertical farms are not the most profitable even after recovering $$ from upfront startup costs.

So it has great potential to seriously change our current food system and allow us to keep producing food in spite of drought. However it has a long way to go as a technology and will need serious federal legislation to create financing programs for this method of agriculture so farmers are not saddled with insane debt and growth projections that they will never be able to meet.