Free Range Capital for Indoor Agriculture

Mark Bomford

Economic Anthropology, 2025, vol. 12, issue 2

Abstract: Vertical farming, a form of indoor controlled‐environment agriculture, attracted substantial amounts of private and public capital and media praise especially during the five‐year period from 2018 to 2023. Both funding and accolades rest on a number of contradictory value propositions concerning land, labor, and capital. These contradictions emerge, in turn, from the sector's marketing as a technologically revolutionary, data‐driven, postscarcity, postmaterial form of farming with the capability to spark commensurate revolutions in farm labor. To its public funders, whose support is typically reduced taxation and regulation, vertical farming promises high‐tech green‐collar employment in economically distressed areas. To its private funders, the prospect of returns on intellectual property embedded in proprietary data analysis platforms implicitly promises reduced labor spending through automation. Recent bankruptcies among vertical farms in the United States that attracted the largest capital investments have provided new material for retrospective study, including public court dockets and asset auctions. In combination with multimodal media analysis and anonymous interviews, this article proposes that vertical farming's failures reflect its inherent dependence on site‐specific legacies of disinvestment and devaluation. These failures highlight structural tensions and contradictions between mobile, speculative green capital and the constraints of fixed assets, local labor markets, and the demands of an elite consumer base whose expectations are shaped by narratives of sustainability, convenience, and social distinction.

Date: 2025
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