[poulsbohemian]

Farmland is stupidly expensive. The equipment and inputs (fertilizer, fuel) are stupidly expensive. Growing outside, you are forever at the whims of the weather rather than being able to control each detail of production. Fields inevitably have parts that have variable soil and water conditions. When you look at what a country like the Netherlands has done with greenhouse growing, it's pretty compelling. Was AppHarvest the answer? Apparently not, but that doesn't negate that there are indoor models that work.

[Doxin]

For some context on the scale of what's going on in the netherlands, see this article for some lovely photos[0]

Mind that these aren't startups either. These are old companies making money. My grandfather used to talk about working in greenhouses exactly like these.

[0] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/glowing-dutch-greenhou...

[nradov]

Which indoor models work? They might be viable for boutique produce that is highly perishable. But the notion that this could ever work for bulk staple crops is just stupid.

Farmland isn't that expensive.

[MandieD]

A lot of the bell peppers and tomatoes for sale in Germany, especially in the winter, are grown in greenhouses in the Netherlands. They’re only somewhat more expensive than the ones grown outside in Spain at the peak of their harvests.

But wheat and potatoes? No, those are strictly outdoor things.

[norome]

already mentioned, but the netherlands (pop 18m) is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world (after the US) — Driven largely by high-tech greenhouse operations.

[poulsbohemian]

Maybe not on a per-acre basis, but when you consider the acreage needed for commercial farming, it's untenable for the "family farmer." As a real estate agent, can I find you a generic alfalfa field that might kick off some vacation money? Sure - $11,000-15,000 an acre. Why is wine $500 / bottle? Because that farm ground is $70,000 / acre in some cases. You want to produce wheat, potatoes, canola, legumes? Now you are talking somewhere between hundred and tens-of-thousands of acres to actually be a player and make any money, so even at $15,000 / acre you are talking millions of dollars just to get in the game before you buy that $500K+ harvester, etc.

[sanswork]

Australia has a number of large veggie producers that use glasshouses for growing and have been around and successful for many years. Look up Flavorite and Perfection Fresh for two examples.

[yorwba]

Perfection seem to be using a lot of foil tunnels: https://www.perfection.com.au/our-farms/perfection-berries-r... Which makes sense, because they're cheap and easy to construct. But for some reason "indoor farming" startups don't seem very interested in taking the simplest solution that could possibly qualify as "indoors" and scaling it up.

[99_00]

It’s the opposite of compelling. The fact the tech and knowledge is well established but not widely used means it’s less profitable and not competitive with traditional farming except in exceptional circumstances