Could this be the future of farming? Inside Europe’s biggest vertical farm

Published

3 days ago

January 5, 2025

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Outside it is the bleak midwinter. We are smack bang in the middle of some of the country’s best agricultural land.

But inside the cavernous warehouse where we’ve come, you wouldn’t have a clue about any of that: there is no daylight; it feels like it could be any time of the day, any season of the year.

We are at Fischer Farms – Europe’s biggest vertical farm.

The whole point of a vertical farm is to create an environment where you can grow plants, stacked on top of each other (hence: vertical) in high density. The idea being that you can grow your salads or peas somewhere close to the cities where they’re consumed rather than hundreds of miles away. Location is not supposed to matter.

So the fact that this particular one is to be found amid the fields a few miles outside Norwich is somewhat irrelevant. It could be anywhere. Indeed, unlike most farms, which are sometimes named after the family that owns them or a local landmark, this one is simply called “Farm 2”. “Farm 1” is to be found in Staffordshire, in case you were wondering.

Farm boss’s dizzying ambition

These futuristic farm units are the brainwave of Tristan Fischer, a serial entrepreneur who has spent much of his career working on renewable energy in its various guises. His ambition now is dizzying: to be able to grow not just basil and chives in a farm like this but to grow other, trickier and more competitive crops too – from strawberries to wheat and rice.

Only then, he says, can vertical farming stand a chance of truly changing the world.

The idea behind vertical farming itself is more than a century old. Back in 1915, American geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey described how it could be done in theory. In theory, one should be able to grow plants hydroponically – in other words with a mineral substrate instead of soil – in a controlled environment and thereby increase the yield dramatically.

In one sense this is what’s already being done in greenhouses across much of Northern Europe and the US, where tomatoes and other warm-weather-loving vegetables are grown in temperature-controlled environments. However, while most of these greenhouses still depend on natural light (if sometimes bolstered by electric bulbs) the point behind vertical farming was that by controlling the amount of light, one could grow more or less everything, any time of the year. And by stacking the crops together one could yield even more crops in each acre of land one was using.

Look at a long-term chart of agricultural yields in this country and you start to see why this might matter. The quantity of crops we grow in each acre of land jumped dramatically in the second half of the 20th century – a consequence in part of liberal use of artificial fertiliser and in part of new technologies and systems. But that productivity rate started to tail off towards the end of the century.

‘Changing the equation’

Vertical farming promises, if it can make the numbers add up, to change the equation, dramatically increasing agricultural productivity in the coming decades. The question is whether the technology is there yet.

And when it comes to the technology, one thing has certainly changed. Those early vertical farms (the first attempts actually date back to the 1950s) all had a big problem: the bulbs. Incandescent bulbs were both too hot and too energy intensive to work in these environments. But the latest generation of LED bulbs are both cool and cheap, and it’s these bulbs you need (in vast numbers) if you’re going to make vertical farming work.

Here at Farm 2, you encounter row after row of trays, each stacked on top of each other, each carrying increasingly leafy basil plants. They sit under thousands of little LED bulbs which are tuned to precisely the right spectral frequency to encourage the plant to grow rapidly.

Mr Fischer says: “We’re on this downward cost curve on LEDs. And then when you think about other main inputs, energy – renewable energy – is constantly coming down as well.

“So you think about all the big drivers of vertical farming, they’re going down, whereas compared to full-grown crops, everything’s going up – the fertilisers, rents, water is becoming more expensive too.”

This farm – which currently sells to restaurant chains rather than direct to consumers – is now cost-competitive with the basil shipped (or more often flown) in from the Mediterranean and North Africa. The carbon footprint is considerably lower too.

“And our long-term goal is that we can get a lot cheaper,” says Mr Fischer. “If you look at Farm 1, we spent about £2.5m on lights in 2018. Fast forward to Farm 2; it’s seven and a half times bigger and in those three years the lights were effectively half the price. We’re also probably using 60 to 70 percent less power.”

It might seem odd to hear a farmer talk so much about energy and comparatively less about the kinds of things one associates with farmers – the soil or tractors or the weather – but vertical farming is in large part an energy business. If energy prices are low enough, it makes the crops here considerably cheaper.

But here in the UK, with power costs higher than anywhere else in the developed world, the prospects for this business are more challenged than elsewhere. Still, Mr Fischer’s objective is to prove the business case here before building bigger units elsewhere, in countries with much cheaper power.

In much the same way as Dutch growers came to dominate those greenhouses, he thinks the UK has a chance of dominating this new agricultural sector.

Business

Basic questions unanswered by Shein at Business and Trade Committee despite firm eyeing London listing

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3 hours ago

January 8, 2025

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Basic questions unanswered by Shein at Business and Trade Committee despite firm eyeing London listing

A representative for one of the world’s biggest fast fashion retailers, Shein was unable to answer questions from MPs over where it sources its cotton from.

Shein’s general counsel for Europe Middle East Africa (EMEA) Yinan Zhu was asked if the company sells products containing cotton from China, mainly the region of Xinjiang, where China has been accused of subjecting members of the Uyghur ethnic group to forced labour.

Speaking at the Business and Trade Committee, Ms Zhu was asked several times whether the company uses cotton supplied from China.

After being pressed on the matter, she said she would have to write to the committee with an answer.

She said: “For detailed operational information and other aspects, I am not able to assist. I will have to write back to the committee afterwards.”

She added: “Obviously, we comply with laws and regulations everywhere we do business in the role. And we have supplier code of conducts, we have robust systems and procedures in place and policies in place.

“We also have very strong enforcement measures in place to ensure we adhere to these standards that are expected in our supply chain.”

When asked if the company believed forced labour took place in Xinjiang, Ms Zhu reminded MPs of the “agenda of the committee, as I understand it, we’re looking at upholding standards”, before adding: “I’m only able to answer the questions that are relating to our business.”

Shein was founded in China in 2012 and is now a leader in fast fashion, shipping to 150 countries.

Committee chairman Liam Byrne challenged Ms Zhu, but she repeated she would have to write to the committee afterwards.

Mr Byrne said the parliamentary committee was “horrified” by the lack of information provided and said Zhu’s statements gave lawmakers “zero confidence” in the integrity of Shein’s supply chains.

“The reluctance to answer basic questions has frankly bordered on contempt,” Mr Byrne said.

The top lawyer’s responses were said to be “ridiculous” and “very unhelpful and disrespectful” by committee member Charlie Maynard.

When Ms Zhu said she was answering to the best of her ability, the Lib Dem MP said: “That is simply not true. We’ve asked you some very, very, very simple questions and you are not giving us straight answers.”

Ms Zhu also said she was unable to say anything about reports the online giant was preparing to list as a public company on the London Stock Exchange.

Sky News reported exclusively in June that Shein had prepared to file a prospectus with the Financial Conduct Authority for approval ahead of a potential float on the exchange.

But when asked on Tuesday if this was true, and why the company had stopped pursuing a New York Stock Exchange float, Ms Zhu said she was unable to comment on any IPO (initial public offering) speculation as it was not her remit.

Business

UK long-term borrowing costs highest this century

Published

12 hours ago

January 7, 2025

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UK long-term borrowing costs highest this century

UK long-term borrowing costs have hit their highest level since 1998.

The unwanted milestone for the Treasury’s coffers was reached ahead of an auction of 30-year bonds, known as gilts, this morning.

The yield – the effective interest rate demanded by investors to hold UK public debt – peaked at 5.21%.

At that level, it is even above the yield seen in the wake of the mini-budget backlash of 2022 when financial markets baulked at the Truss government’s growth agenda which contained no independent scrutiny from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Money latest: Do I need to pay five-year old parking fine?

The premium is up, market analysts say, because of growing concerns the Bank of England will struggle to cut interest rates this year.

Just two cuts are currently priced in for 2025 as investors fear policymakers’ hands could be tied by a growing threat of stagflation.

The jargon essentially covers a scenario when an economy is flatlining at a time of rising unemployment and inflation.

Growth has ground to a halt, official data and private surveys have shown, since the second half of last year.

Critics of the government have accused Sir Keir Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, of talking down the economy since taking office in July amid their claims of needing to fix a “£22bn black hole” in the public finances.

Both warned of a tough budget ahead. That first fiscal statement put businesses and the wealthy on the hook for £40bn of tax rises.

Corporate lobby groups have since warned of a hit to investment, pay growth and jobs to help offset the additional costs.

At the same time, consumer spending has remained constrained amid stubborn price growth elements in the economy.

Higher borrowing costs also reflect a rising risk premium globally linked to the looming return of Donald Trump as US president and his threats of universal trade tariffs.

The higher borrowing bill will pose a problem for Ms Reeves as she seeks to borrow more to finance higher public investment and spending.

Tuesday’s auction saw the Debt Management Office sell £2.25bn of 30-year gilts to investors at an average yield of 5.198%.

It was the highest yield for a 30-year gilt since its first auction in May 1998, Refinitiv data showed.

This extra borrowing could mean Ms Reeves is at risk of breaking the spending rules she created for herself, to bring down debt, and so she may have less money to spend, analysts at Capital Economics said.

“There is a significant chance that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will judge that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is on course to miss her main fiscal rule when it revises its forecasts on 26 March. To maintain fiscal credibility, this may mean that Ms Reeves is forced to tighten fiscal policy further,” said Ruth Gregory, the deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics.