in August of 2019, Vice News reported on a few vertical farming startups in Singapore. Because Singapore is a small nation that's highly urbanized, the country doesn't have much land to do farming the same way that other countries do. Because of this, the country has welcome vertical farming startups.

Some advantages of vertical farming include:

However, vertical farming is energy-intensive. Lamps are shining light onto plants 24/7 and complex systems are monitoring plants and providing them with their scheduled "rain".

With high energy prices, many are reluctant to invest in vertical farming startups. Higher utility bills decrease the profitability of this energy-intensive form of farming. At the same time, scientists are continuing to find new sources of energy as well as finding ways to make vertical farming less energy-intensive.

If food shortages do come in, then I believe that many investors will pile money into vertical farming startups since the economics of vertical farming makes them more capable of feeding the world faster than traditional farmers. Some might think that $BYND and other food processing companies will have an easier time alleviating a food shortage, but at the end of the day, they source their ingredients from farmers.

Some vertical farming companies that I'm looking at are $APPH $HYFM $GRWG $AGFY $UGRO $VFF. While all of them look appealing, I'm still debating on which one is the better investment.

And to end it off here, I hope that the world doesn't end up in a food shortage situation. Some countries are dealing with food shortages and let's hope that their situation gets alleviated as soon as possible. We don't want food shortages to become a big thing in the coming future.