There’s zillions of private and public dollars flowing into vertical farming. Haven’t heard of it? They say it’s the future of agriculture.

Vertical farming is the process in which crops are grown on top of each other, rather than in traditional, horizontal rows. Growing vertically takes up less space, resulting in a higher crop yield per square foot of land. But here’s the thing: this is all done indoors, like in a warehouse. Inside, growers have the ability to control the conditions for plants to succeed.

In 2014, the Obama administration created a non-profit organization with a $200 million gift from taxpayers along with additional millions from Bill Gates. Their job was to bring agriculture into the future.

And here’s what they came up with: a public and private partnership consisting of indoor growers, breeders, and genetics companies. “Indoors” is the key word here, although “genetics” may be tied for first.

There’s a lot of money behind indoor growing: the vertical farming market was valued at $5.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach nearly 20 billion in 2026. These growing facilities are astronomical in size and can feed millions of people. For example, Bowery Farming is building their newest “smart” facility just outside of Dallas, which will feed 16 million people within 200 miles.

Bill Gates insists that droughts and climate change are destroying our ability to farm and that the future will consist of populations moving into metropolitan cities where indoor vertical farming will feed people.

But what’s going to happen to the farmers when these enormous indoor vertical farms have taken over every major city, locked in contracts with all major grocery store chains, and are funded by some of the same people who are seeking to change nearly every aspect of human life?

AeroFarms is a private company based in Newark, New Jersey. They’ve grown more than 550 different crops. Some of their main products include baby kale, watercress, and rocket, which are sold under the name Dream Greens, and they are now growing berries as well.

As of 2021, AeroFarms already had nine farms and was working on building a tenth. They say they can go from seed to harvest in 15 days with their patented technology. Some of the bigger vertical farms are already selling their produce to grocery stores like Walmart, Kroger, and Whole Foods.

In addition to all of the vertical farms going up, giant greenhouses are being erected as well. A Rhode Island company is in the process of building a mammoth greenhouse and they project they can yield up to 650,000 pounds of tomatoes per acre.

Forbes estimates more than $20 trillion in investments are following indoor growing, while BlackRock CEO Larry Fink insists that “it’s time to force people’s behavior to change,” and to expand green investments even further. An astronomical amount of money is flowing into these sustainable vertical facilities, as well as the new massive greenhouses.

Because these facilities need great amounts of electricity to function, one of many downsides is that, compared to outdoor farming, the costs for energy will be much higher with vertical farming. Imagine driving through the countryside in fifty years and seeing farmland replaced by wind turbines.

And it doesn’t look like they’re going to make it easy for say, individuals or groups, or communities to build their own vertical gardening systems. It takes highly skilled labor to construct and operate a facility. In some states, it may even be forbidden to construct and operate these systems if you do not have a certain qualification level.

Vertical farming will also only be suitable for certain kinds of plants from an economic perspective. Since the technology behind vertical farming is not mature yet, the costs are high and inexpensive food like potatoes might not justify the financial effort related to growing them.

There is also the issue that plants raised in vertical farming systems may contain fewer nutrients compared to plants that are raised outside on the field and under the sun.

I see the wisdom in certain aspects of this new technology–like using fewer or no pesticides–but some of it makes no sense. These indoor “farms” might use solar panels to harvest naturally occurring sunlight. In other words, they’re trying to use the sun to replace the sun.

Here comes the future folks. Like it or not, here it comes. Many aspects of human life are being changed right in front of our eyes.