TECHNOLOGY
That’ s 86 times the yield per acre of a conventional farm, using just 1 % of the land. The strawberries grow on 30-foot towers in climate-controlled rooms, analysed by software that processes 10 million data points daily. Traditional farming sits at one end of a long, expensive, carbon-intensive supply chain. Vertical farms eliminate most of that chain by moving production into or near cities. Driscoll’ s Plenty Sweet strawberries reach Virginia consumers from within 150 miles of their homes – not 2,000 miles away from California’ s Central Valley. The 30 % spoilage rate from long-haul transport disappears, as do the associated Scope 3 emissions.
This matters more now than it would have a decade ago.
What Deloitte calls the“ triple threat” – climate chaos, supply chain fragility, stricter carbon regulations – has made the old model increasingly unworkable.
California’ s agricultural regions face what appear to be permanent water shortages, while weather patterns have become unpredictable. This fragility is now showing up in grocery prices and empty shelves. Nate Storey, Plenty’ s Co- Founder, explains:“ I felt that technology could help feed a lot of people, extend lives, fight environmental destabilisation and give land back to the natural landscape.
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