DOWN ON THE FARM

A “farm” today means 100,000 chickens in a space the size of a Motel 6 shower stall. ~ P.J. O’Rourke   

Eighty percent of Americans live in urban areas. Close to 100% of our food isn’t grown in urban areas, other than folks who now are cultivating 21st century victory gardens in their back yards. As you’ve probably noticed, the price of groceries rose last month. Prices swelled 2.6%, the largest increase in 46 years mostly because of pricier meats, poultry, fish and eggs. Ordinarily, farmers would be pleased when retail food prices have risen, but not now.

Why not? Because even though retail groceries’ prices rose, agricultural commodity crop prices that farmers receive have steadily dropped as their input costs have risen. They’re crosswise in the barn. According to the USDA, farmers have gotten squeezed as input costs have climbed about 11% and crop prices have fallen 11% since 2011. Like many others, our nation’s agricultural (ag) markets have been in tumult, beginning two years ago with #45’s disastrous tariff policies with China. In retaliation, more than 20% of US agricultural exports face reciprocal Chinese tariffs and other countries. I’ve written previously how these tariffs have wounded US farmers.

Today the Census Bureau also provided unsurprising but sobering news about food services sales for April. Sales at grocery stores dropped by a record 13.2% from March. These are bad times for retail sales of virtually every sort.  

Generally speaking, farmers have long been a key Republican constituency. Nevertheless, they’ve been showered with fiscal benefits by both red and blue politicians, especially for ag commodity growers. The very first US Farm Bill was passed in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which provided needed financial aid and subsidies to farmers in the heart of the Great Depression.

The Farm Bill, renewed every five years, represents an age-old, impressive, publicly-financed ag safety net. Like previous versions, the latest $867 billion (B) Farm Bill, signed into law in December 2018, includes substantial taxpayer-provided support for farm incomes, crop prices, financing, crop insurance and, importantly from a political perspective, nutrition assistance programs. The funding of these nutrition programs within the Farm Bill, like SNAP aka “food stamps,” persuades urban Congresspeople to vote for legislation that also aids rural denizens.

Not every US farm receives this largesse. Over 60% of farmers do not receive any ag subsidies; the vast bulk of support goes to growers of the nation’s “industrial” agriculture commodities: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice. Most recent information indicates that the largest 10% of farmers have received about 75% of federal ag subsidy dollars.

Unlike his totally passing the buck for covid-19 testing, the president has passed many bucks during the past two years directly to certain farmers. An additional $61B funding to the USDA is now compensating farmers for the “unjustified foreign retaliatory tariffs” as well as the pandemic’s economic damage. This impressive sum works out to an average of about $30,000 for each and every person employed on a US farm. However, very few of these dollars are actually going to workers toiling among the farms’ rows or to non-commodity growers. This elevated $30,000 sum is quite distinct from the $1,200 checks other members of the public have received or are still expecting to obtain.

This bounty might be historically justified because tenured farming emerged right after hunting-and-gathering humans started growing crops in fixed locations about 10,000 years ago. Food comes first, of course and farmers produce the food. Agriculture’s special place in our stomachs if not hearts is also ensured because over the long course of human history it’s been the only line of work that the vast majority of humanity has ever undertaken. Only recently, in historical terms, have many of us worked away from the soil, as shown in the chart below.

Share of Labor Force in Agriculture by Nation and Year

Nation	1500	1800	2012	2017
England/UK	58.1%	31.7%	1.2%	1.3%
Netherlands	56.8%	40.7%	2.5%	1.2%
Italy	62.3%	57.8%	3.7%	3.9%
France	73%	59.2%	2.9%	2.8%
Poland	75.3%	56.2%	12.1%	11.5%
US		90%	1.5%	0.70%

Sources: Ourworldindata.org, the World Factbook 

    The displayed educated guesses for ag’s share of national labor forces in 1500 show that up to three-quarters of laborers worked in the fields. England’s and the Netherlands’ ag labor shares indicate their farmers were somewhat more efficient than those in Italy, France or Poland. The mechanized Agricultural Revolution was in full “bloom” by 1800, shown by the reduced ag labor shares, especially in England. That was not true at first for American farmers, who did not have initial access to improvements deployed at English farms. By 1880, farms’ share of US workers was reduced to 49%.

This multi-century agricultural revolution included improvements in: crop rotation methods, roadways and canals, land management, selective breading of plants and animals, creation of regional and ultimately national markets for foodstuffs, allowances for exclusive ownership of land plots and new farming technologies. The English, Danish and others made significant, early enhancements to iron plows, so they could be guided more accurately and faster by fewer oxen. Another ag technology improvement was the creation of the seed press by none other than Jethro Tull. Mr. Tull’s marvelous mechanical seeder, patented in 1701, distributed seeds evenly across a plot of land and at the specified, correct depth. His original seed press was fragile, heavy and expensive; his efforts to improve it did not allow much time for his abiding interest in progressive rock music. Oh, well. Better versions of his seed press ultimately became very widely used.

The majority of the US agricultural improvements have been capital-using and labor-saving. In the 19th century, such improvements included the cotton gin, mechanical reaper and steel plow. This is unsurprising because historically the US has been resource "rich" (especially land and minerals) and labor "poor." Creating more efficient and productive machines remedied our nation's relative lack of labor. These farm machines allowed the relatively scarce workers to become much more productive.

These impressive improvements farm agriculture have produced more food for more people using less labor and land. In other words, extensive advancements in ag productivity occurred between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. In 1880 it required 2.5 acres of farmland to produce 100 bushels (bu) of corn. In 1987 it took just 1.1 acres to produce 100bu of corn; in 2017, just 0.6 acres.

Similar advances in ag technologies have reduced the amount of labor needed to produce many foodstuffs. From the above chart all the listed nations except Poland now have less than 4% of their labor force working in agriculture; the US has just 0.7% of our labor force working on farms.

The second chart below shows my Agriculture Productivity Index for ten nations. This index measures the economic contribution of a nation's entire agricultural sector by comparing the nation's share of GDP derived from agriculture relative to its share of labor employed in agriculture. The higher the value of this index, the more productive is the ag sector; the more ag output is being produced measured against ag labor input.

Agriculture Sector Productivity

Nation	Agriculture Productivity Index, 2017
US	1.28
Australia	1.00
Italy	0.54
UK	0.54
China	0.66
France	0.61
Russia	0.50
Canada	0.80
Netherlands	1.33
Poland	0.21

This chart shows that in 2017 the Dutch and US economies have the highest ag sector productivity. Poland’s ag sector has the lowest. The US ag sector is over 11x larger than the Netherlands’ and 6.5x larger than Poland’s.

Every nation provides some level of subsidies to its agricultural sector because strategically all nations require domestically-produced food. Low Index values, less than 1.0, may mean inefficient or quite subsidized ag production. The members of the European Union (EU) in 2017 included Italy, the UK, France, the Netherlands and Poland from the chart. The EU spends $65B per year – over 3x what the US spends – subsidizing agriculture. It’s perhaps the largest, single-sector subsidy program in the world.

Let me end on a sweeter note. One very different, slender, non-industrial and quite tasty slice of US agriculture is organic farming. Organic farm sales represent just over 4% of total food sales and less than 0.01% of all farms. Demand for organically-produced, local farm products continues to show double-digit growth, despite its somewhat higher prices.

Surprisingly, this small-ish corner of the ag market is now booming, perhaps because of the viral crisis. More consumers are heading for community-supported agriculture (CSA) that is now thriving. According to the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture, there are over 12,600 farms that market their produce through a CSA. CSAs are most definitely not what P.J. O’Rourke’s quote cited at this blog’s opening refers to.

Unlike many other farm operations, no CSA farmers are plowing their unsold crops into the soil, nor tossing perishables due to lagging demand. Au contraire, CSA farms are busier than usual. CSA members, like us, buy a share of a farm’s harvest throughout the season or year; it gets delivered every week in a box, headed finally for your kitchen. Our CSA, Full Belly Farm, is located northwest of Sacramento in the beautiful Capay Valley. Our box this week contained carrots, strawberries, chard, lettuce, spring onions, potatoes and Tokyo turnips. Yum.  

CSA programs around the country are experiencing a surge in people wanting to become members. Judith Redmond, a founding partner of Full Belly Farm, says, "The interest in getting fresh, organic produce just has skyrocketed during this crisis.” CSA farms like Full Belly are busy attempting to increase production to meet rising demand. Fingers remain crossed. The CSA supply-chain is quite brief and utterly local: the farm picks its ripe produce in the fields, inspects it, washes it, and within a day or so and brings it in a box that the member opens up at the delivery location and takes home. This is what our spring boxes of CSA veges can look like.

Source: Full Belly Farm

The state of American agriculture is thus very diverse, ranging from huge, subsidized industrial agricultural operations to far smaller, more personal CSAs. Many of the giant ag operations are being tormented by the effects of the covid microbe. Fortunately, CSAs are becoming more sought-after and popular probably because of the coronavirus. Here’s hoping we food consumers continue benefiting from small CSA boxes.

BEWARE, SUBSIDIES BITE BACK

In the game of baseball, you live by the sword and die by it. You hit and get hit. Remember that. ~ Alvin Dark[1] 

The world is awash in subsidies. Many sorts of taxpayer-paid benefits to customers and producers inhabit all types of markets. Unsurprisingly, benefited producers and consumers, like you and me, enjoy them because they provide lower costs and prices. Subsidies are like ghosts; most folks are not even aware of them; but they’re lurking in lots of marketplaces including fuel and food. We do not relish it at all when subsidies are taken away.

Around the world, when governments attempt to scale-back costly subsidies, citizens get very offended. As it has in the past, this has been happening recently. Just ask the leaders of Chile, Ecuador, France, Iran and the US, among other nations.

Every subsidy is initially justified as an incentive to promote the “public good” be it oil exploration in 1913 or mortgage interest tax deduction also in 1913. But inevitably, subsidies soon become seen as deserved entitlements, when they are thought about at all. That’s why the “best” subsidies should always have an explicit end date, like the California state subsidy for solar panel installations.

Historically speaking the grandest subsidy of all were the Homestead Acts, first signed by President Lincoln in 1862, that incentivized western migration. Any citizen, including freed slaves, could claim up to 160 acres of federally-owned land. If they lived on the claimed property for five continuous years, built a home and grew crops, they could then file a deed to own the property. More than 160 million acres were homesteaded, representing almost 10% of the US, mostly west of the Mississippi River.

Subsidies have come in an impressive variety of new, old and strange flavors. New ones include credits for green energy technologies (like solar and wind power) and electric vehicle purchases. Agricultural subsidies, probably created not long after farmers first started purposefully tilling fields 10,000 years ago, are ancient as well as relatively large and spanning the globe. Food – and subsidies supporting it – usually comes first on anyone’s menu.  

Downright strange subsidies include a $47,000 grant to a New York jitney service to improve its shuttle operations for wealthy New Yorkers going to their summer homes in the Hamptons on Long Island; a $50,000 subsidy spent on a tattoo-removal program in San Luis Obispo, California; and a $225,000 grant in Minnesota to determine whether poultry litter (aka, chicken poop) could be used as a fuel for generating electricity.

Question: What is the largest subsidy that the US government now provides?

No, it’s not the very tall heap of Ben Franklins [over $26 billion (B) worth] that the fossil-fuel industry receives from federal and state governments. This impressive sum fuels about $12B for renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts. This total does not include $14B to corn farmers who produce ethanol. We’ll get back to fuel subsidies in a moment.

The largest subsidy also does not include the $150B per year of tax-breaks that home mortgage-holders receive as well as other aid to encourage home ownership in America. This subsidy is the second biggest.

American farmers have long benefited from several types of subsidies, which total about $25B every year. Federal support for agriculture (ag) includes the establishment of our land-grant colleges beginning in 1862 with Kansas State University. In 1887 federally-funded agricultural research was initiated. Direct subsidies that provide “farm income stabilization” were first introduced in the 1930s.

We taxpayers provide subsidies that seek to protect farmers against fluctuations in prices, revenues and yields (the amount of crop produced per acre). These agricultural subsidies do cover price-supports for commodity crops like corn, wheat, rice and soybeans, as well as crop insurance. About 40% of the nation's 2 million farms receive subsidies. A recent analysis found that 60% of the largest ag subsidies go to the biggest 10% of farms.

Crop insurance can be vital. It is purchased by farmers and subsidized by the federal government, to protect against the loss of their crops due to natural disasters, or revenue losses due to declines in agricultural commodity prices. Over 80% of US crop acreage is insured via the federal crop insurance program. Five years ago, the portion of total cotton acreage covered by crop insurance was 96%; and soybeans, 88%. And who said commodity farmers are defenseless against mother nature?

The $25B sum for all farm subsidies does not include the additional $15.3B that the Trump administration has provided farmers since 2018 as “trade aid” to ameliorate the nasty effects that retaliatory Chinese tariffs have laid upon one of his most stalwart constituencies. It is nearly certain that more trade aid will be provided to US farmers, as the US-China tariff “war” drags on.

Agriculture subsidies cover much more than US farms. The European Union (EU) spends even more money on ag subsidies; 37% of its budget is devoted to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies, or about $65B per year. These subsidies are designed to protect European farmers’ livelihoods. They are so substantial that according to the New York Times, the Hungarian Prime Minister, the Czech Republic Prime Minister, as well as very senior officials in Slovakia and Bulgaria, have re-directed part of their nations’ CAP subsidy gravy train to their family members and political friends. Is there a quid pro quo down on the farm? Seems so.

Whenever EU politicians initiate preliminary discussions about reducing their massive CAP expenditures, farmers protest by driving their huge tractors into capital cities to disrupt commerce. In late November this happened once again, in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin and Paris.

Subsidy recipients in the US also protest when valued benefits are threatened. In January 2015 the Obama administration proposed ending the popular Sec. 529 tax benefit to pay for college expenses. The hue and cry from many of the millions of folks who took advantage of this tax-reduced means of paying for their children’s college was loud and clear. President Obama abandoned his proposal within a week. His staff called it “such a distraction” for the State of the Union address preparation. Back to the drawing board.

Answer: The very largest subsidies that the federal and state governments proffer are for healthcare, about $290B each year. In addition to subsidized Medicare and Medicaid, healthcare supports include the key tax-exclusion that employer-paid health care insurance receives. Employers provide 56% of all healthcare policies in the US and pay over 80% of their employees’ healthcare premiums (it used to be a higher percentage). Employers’ premium payments are exempt from federal income and payroll taxes. In addition, there are direct subsidies that reduce premiums for lower-income citizens through the ACA and tax-deductibility for large, personal medical expenses. If Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren is elected president next November, many of these subsidies probably would disappear. Instead, the federal government would directly pay for virtually all our healthcare expenses, perhaps over $3 trillion per year, ten times the current healthcare subsidies.

Let’s return to another market that receives significant subsidies in many nations, energy.

To get a sense of how large energy subsidies can be, the table below calculates the implied subsidy for each listed country, based on its domestic gasoline price versus the world average price.

As shown, Venezuela completely subsidies (100%) its domestic price of gasoline, basically offering one gallon to consumers for a worthless 

Price of Gasoline by Nation

Nation (Price rank in parentheses)	Price of Gasoline* ($/gal)	Implicit Subsidy
Venezuela (1)	$0.00	100%
Iran (2)	$0.47	89%
Ecuador (11)	$1.85	55%
USA (31)	$2.93	29%
World Average	$4.14

*Average prices as of Nov. 25, 2019.

Source: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/

1 Bolivar, a price fixed in 1997 despite hyperbolic inflation since 2018. This giant subsidy is costly; it represents over 20% of the Venezuelan GDP.

For perspective, a liter of milk – when available – costs about 20,000 Bolivars in Caracas. On the Venezuelan black market – the illegal, “parallel market” – one US dollar is worth well over 1 million Bolivars. The Venezuelan government’s official exchange rate states 1 Bolivar is worth about 10 US cents, which everyone considers a grotesque fiscal joke. Gas may be free at pumps in Venezuela, but only if a person can afford to wait in line for days to buy some due to significant shortages.

Iran provides the second most-subsidized (and thus least-expensive) gasoline in the world, where it currently sells for $0.47 per gallon; that’s a gasoline price level the US hasn’t seen since 1973. Iran’s gasoline subsidy is 89%, relative to the world average price. Iran’s fossil-fuel price subsidies represent more than 15% of its GDP.

Iranian gasoline consumers rioted across the country in mid-November after their government increased the price of fuel by about 50%. Multitudes of very unhappy demonstrators – most of whom believe that super cheap gasoline is an entitlement – have continued to burn gas stations and block traffic in Tehran and dozens of other cities. Many have been killed. Iran’s theocrats have yet to back down.

In early October Ecuador’s government removed its costly 40-year old subsidy, now 55%, on gasoline that increased the price by about 25%; the price of diesel doubled. Protests happened immediately led by indigenous groups that turned increasingly violent despite a military-enforced curfew. With two weeks the President of Ecuador retreated and re-imposed the subsidy.

Remember the country-wide “yellow vest” protests in France? In November 2018 these protests were precipitated when the French president raised the gasoline tax. That didn’t last long. President Macron soon cancelled the tax increase due to the protests’ intensity and potency. Despite this victory, the yellow-vest protests have continued.

Similar widespread, popular protests against gasoline price hikes have occurred in Indonesia, Myanmar and Nigeria during the past 20 years. Indonesian strong-man Suharto’s government was deposed in no small part by gasoline price-induced protests. In effect, he lived by the subsidized sword, and also died by it politically. Perhaps baseball and politics really are not all that different.

The pervasive protests I have mentioned above raise a challenging dilemma for political leaders: How can governments reduce and reform fuel (and other) subsidies, which can be both fiscally and environmentally ruinous, without setting off extensive protests? So far, there seems to be no answer. Once a subsidy of any kind has been established, the beneficiaries (consumers and/or producers) will cry wolf, bite back, or worse if it is reduced or eliminated. It is a beyond-holiday gift we pay for that keeps on giving.

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[1] Alvin Dark won World Series rings both as a player and a manager during his 31-year career. He managed five major league teams including the Oakland A’s. He oversaw the A’s World Series championship in 1974. 

IS VERTICAL FARMING THE NEXT BIG GREEN THING?

If Matt Damon can grow potatoes on Mars, why can’t we grow lettuce and basil in Bushwick? 

Is vertical farming the next big green thing? You would think so if you follow the growing interest of the media. Or will it turn out to be like Webvan and other dot-com busted ideas?

It’s too early to tell if the billions that venture capitalists have plowed into food and agriculture (ag) tech startups like AeroFarms, Edenworks and Plantagon will provide fiscal fruit in addition to actual produce. But vertical farming is definitely being talked about way beyond Silicon Valley as well as the Central Valley’s and Florida’s non-vertical “flat-land” farms. Its promoters euphorically predict VF will change the way food is produced and ultimately even help mitigate hunger.

Vertical farming (VF), also called warehouse farming and urban farming, refers to indoor food production without sunlight or soil. Instead, VF uses hydroponics, aeroponics, frequency-specific LEDs and systems to grow vegetables in columns of vertically-stacked racks from 6 to 80 feet high inside warehouses or other open-space buildings, as shown in the picture below. Although the first vertical farm in the world was a hydroponics facility built in Armenia sometime before 1951, Japan has emerged as a leader in commercial VFs after the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tidal wave destroyed a substantial amount of cropland.

Most vertical farms grow “microgreens” – salad vegetables such as lettuce, arugula, Swiss chard, sprouts and herbs – picked right after the first sets of leaves have developed. Lettuce is the most popular microgreen grown by VFs.

City-Hydro’s Vertical Farm. Source: New York Times

Here's a brief summary of what’s known about lettuce. Lettuce is a member of the daisy family. The first record of its production was in Egypt 4700 years ago. It was initially grown for the oil from its seeds and considered a sacred plant of the reproduction god Min. Lettuce believe in Min.

Lettuce leaves’ consumption came at bit later. Based on hieroglyphic information, Egyptian lettuce may have been an ancient ancestor of what we now call romaine lettuce. There are 2 general types of lettuce, head lettuce – like the iceberg lettuce you consumed as a child and still do in a Caesar salad; and leaf lettuce – like romaine, bib and red-leaf. California’s Central Valley accounts for 71% of US head lettuce production, followed by Arizona producing nearly 29%. These 2 states also produce over 98% of leaf lettuce in the US. Lettuce is grown year-round in CA and AZ.

According to the latest USDA Census of Agriculture, 3.88 billion pounds of lettuce were produced on 323,359 acres, up 3% since 2007. In 2014, annual consumption was 14.1 pounds and 10.8 pounds per person for head and leaf/romaine lettuce, respectively. Due to its very high water content (94.9%), lettuce cannot be successfully frozen, canned or dried and thus must be eaten fresh. The number of farms producing lettuce on 5 acres or less (such as vertical farms) increased 38% between 2007 and 2012. Twelve percent of domestic lettuce is exported. Sales of US lettuce in 2013 totaled nearly $1.5 billion, making lettuce the leading vegetable crop in terms of value.

Because VFs are a new type of farm operation, they account for a very thin wedge of the leaf lettuce market. Although VF techniques use far less water and fertilizer and no pesticides, because the sun doesn’t shine indoors VFs use much larger amounts of electricity than conventional farms. Alas, VFs get no free sunshine.

Recently VF start-ups have enjoyed quite a bit of media attention. After all, who wouldn’t be interested in folks who grow micro-romaine in warehouses in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the east-coast center of nearly everything cool, now including micro-lettuce?

Part of this tech-oriented attention is concentrated on the amount of green (funding) ag start-ups have received. “Food and ag tech” start-ups have received notable venture-capital (VC) backing; $4.6 billion in 2015, a considerable sum that represents 3.5% of all VC funding.

The pluses of VF are enticing. Vertical farms can produce microgreens much faster than their horizontal, dirt-based brethren. Some VFs indicate their leaf greens can be produced in 12 to 16 days. That’s far less time than regular, horizontal leaf lettuce farms’ harvest cycle. Depending on the variety and time of year, outdoor lettuce is produced between 65–130 days from planting to harvesting. With the reduced growing cycle and the increased amount of food grown per unit of production area, VFs’ lettuce yield is probably at least 180% of the outdoor leaf lettuce yield, although some VFs claim far higher yields.

Also VF producers enjoy reduced transportation costs because their markets are often geographically close. However, the transport costs associated with shipping outdoor lettuce ordinarily are a minor expense. Overall, transportation costs account for about 4% of the energy used in the US food system.

The minuses of producing VF microgreens center on its micro scale and indoor-ness. Although some VFs are growing bigger, many remain miniature – using a garage, spare bedroom or small building interior areas to produce greens. Vertical farms save on unit water, fertilizer and pesticide costs but are saddled with much higher electricity costs for lighting, pumping and cooling. VFs are very electricity intensive. Even as price of LEDs diminishes, monthly lighting expenses are sizeable for VFs. One VF owner says his operation, a one-acre VF in Michigan that produces 33 tons of microgreens per year, is profitable but he is paying $7,000/mo for cheaper off-peak electricity, electricity, which represents 8.4% of annual revenues.This owner expects electricity costs can be reduced to $5,000/mo by year-end with the use of frequency-specific LEDs. With these LEDs, he also expects crop yield will increase.

It is not clear that as VFs’ production grows vertical farmers’ marginal electricity costs can be reduced that much because each plant requires a specified amount of lighting. Vertical farms’ profitability will depend on that. One reason that VF may remain a small, tentative niche is that like all horizontal farmers, VFs need to produce green profits, not just greens to be sustainable. And VF profitability has been an issue.

“There are situations in dense urban areas where space is highly limited that growing food with artificial lights, stacked vertically, makes sense, especially highly perishable products like sprouts or salad greens where there is an immediate market for them,” said Stephen J. Ventura, a professor of environmental studies and soil science at the University of Wisconsin. Critics consider it unlikely that vertical farming can produce enough food of different varieties to feed a significant number of people in a commercially viable way.

Bruce Bugbee, a professor of crop physiology at Utah State University, remains concerned about VFs’ longer-term feasibility when he states, “It’s such an appealing idea — ‘Press Floor 10 for lettuce’ — that people picked up on it right away. The fundamental problem [with VFs] is that plants need a lot of light. It’s free outside. If we’re going to do it inside, it will require a lot of electricity probably from burning of a lot of fossil fuels. Vertical farming is fine if you’ll let me have a vertical nuclear reactor next to it.” Prof. Bugbee’s tongue is in his cheek regarding the vertical nuclear reactor. But in 2015, 67% of US electricity was generated from awfully un-green fossil-fuels.

Because it’s a newfangled way of producing produce, there are no data available about the total amount of food produced by VFs. Still it’s a miniscule slice of overall food production. The largest VF now in operation is 2.3 acres, which represents 0.5% of the average-sized farm in the US. For a bit more perspective about how tiny VFs are relative to outdoor vegetable farms, the largest vegetable producer (including lettuce) in the Central Valley tills 53,095 acres.

Most members of the VF community do not expect they will ever harvest anything but a small serving of US overall vegetable production. Nonetheless, small servings of high-value local microgreens are fine because few VFs are interested in selling to mass food distributors like Safeway and Kroger. Some more aggressive VFs might want to sell to upmarket retailers like Whole Foods, but VFs’ current production volumes usually do not meet Whole Foods’ requisite needs. Instead, successful FVs are likely to keep selling directly to local higher-end restaurants, farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA) coops and/or other direct-to-consumer channels where higher prices hold sway. The USDA asserts many consumers are willing to pay a premium for local food, as anyone considering farmers-market produce can attest.

VF-grown microgreens are as local as veges can get. Yet the most-often used definition of “local” food is quite expansive and encompasses far more than VF producers. According to the definition adopted by Congress in the 2008 Farm Act, the total distance that a product can be transported and still be considered a “locally or regionally produced agricultural food product” is less than 400 miles from its origin, or within the State in which it is produced. With this Farm Act local food definition, lettuce grown in Youngstown, Ohio or Montreal, Canada would be considered locally produced in Brooklyn!

The USDA estimates that local food sales totaled $6.1 billion in 2012, which represents 0.45% of total US food sales. Local food sales are quickly growing and are projected to increase 24% per year during the next 3 years.

Hans Hassle, chief executive of Plantagon International a Swedish VF firm that’s expanding in the US and around the globe, says “Vertical farming as an industry is very much at the beginning. We have focused on making it industrial and scalable, and that’s a little bit crazy. It’s like trying to do the impossible. It looks almost like science fiction.”

But not nearly as fictional as Martian potatoes. Here’s to indoor microgreens in Bushwick and beyond…