[commonturtle]

It takes time to make the economics favorable by incrementally improving the technology. Once indoor vertical farming does become favorable, it will have huge benefits over outsourcing food production to Africa or elsewhere.

National security for one; it times of war no one can starve your population into submission by cutting off shipments of food into your country. Your crops are also more resilient to pestilence and disease if grown in a controlled indoor environment.

All this makes it a worthwhile line of exploration, no?