紐時賞析／垂直農場10年崩 「改造農業」美夢碎

Vertical Farms Tried to Compete With Field Farming. It Isn’t Going Well.

垂直農場10年崩 「改造農業」美夢碎

Vertical farming businesses blossomed a decade ago, promising an abundant, cleaner source of fruits and vegetables. Today, most of those startups have withered.

10年前，垂直農業企業快速興起，標榜能提供充足且更潔淨的蔬果來源。但如今，多數新創已經走向衰退。

Constructed in opaque buildings like warehouses, vertical farms resemble sterile manufacturing facilities more than farms. Crops are grown in trays stacked to the ceiling, fed with hydroponic or aeroponic systems and bathed in white and purple LED lights to maximize photosynthesis.

垂直農場通常設在類似倉庫的不透光建築內，看起來更像無菌製造設施，而非傳統農場。作物種植在層層堆疊至天花板的托盤中，透過水耕或氣霧栽培系統供給養分，並在白光與紫光LED照明下生長，以提高光合作用效率。

By the late 2010s, Silicon Valley was investing billions in companies promising to remake agriculture. Now, venture capital funding has gone up in flames, most prominently the $938 million raised by Bowery Farming and $792 million by AppHarvest, which are out of business.

2010年代後期，矽谷向這些揚言要重塑農業的企業投入數十億美元資金。如今，創投資金幾乎化為烏有，其中最具代表性的是Bowery Farming籌得的9.38億美元，以及AppHarvest籌得的7.92億美元，兩家公司目前都已倒閉。

The farms and their investors were not fully prepared for what they would encounter in the agriculture industry, where margins are already thin. New, high-tech vertical farms had to elbow their way into produce markets dominated by extremely efficient traditional farms. Any perceived edge eroded when energy costs rose. Higher interest rates tightened the purse strings of venture capital firms and made it tougher for farms to get access to cash.

這些農場及其投資人，對農業本身的現實缺乏充分準備，產業原本利潤就相當有限。新興的高科技垂直農場必須硬擠進由高效率的傳統農場主導的市場。一旦能源成本上升，原本的競爭優勢隨即消失。利率上升也讓創投資金趨緊，使農場更難取得資金。

The infrastructure costs for vertical farms are enormous, especially compared with planting a few acres. Many businesses spent large sums on warehouses and lights without fully fledged business models. Some had to build their own software and hardware.

垂直農場的基礎建設成本極高，尤其與傳統種植幾英畝農地相比更為明顯。許多企業在尚未建立成熟商業模式前，就投入大量資金在倉儲設施與照明設備上。有些公司甚至必須自行開發軟體與硬體系統。

“I would argue vertical farming has done a lot in 10 years, and yet it has also completely failed,” said Mike Zelkind, a co-founder of 80 Acre Farms, one of the biggest remaining vertical farm companies.

少數大型業者之一的80 Acres Farms共同創辦人澤爾金表示：「我會說，垂直農業這10年確實做了很多事，但同時也可以說是徹底失敗。」

“There was an early notion by VCs and tech bros — this idea that you had to immediately take this cheap or free money and you could outcost traditional farmers,” Zelkind said. “But this is advanced manufacturing. This is not software.”

澤爾金說：「早期創投與科技圈存在一種想法，認為只要利用低成本甚至免費資金，就能在成本上擊敗傳統農民。但這門生意其實是先進製造業，不是軟體業。」

Plenty, which raised nearly $1 billion, like many others began with lettuce but learned that the market was well supplied with lettuce.

募資接近10億美元的Plenty，和許多公司一樣最初從種植萵苣起步，但很快發現市場上的萵苣供應早已充足。

Plenty has pivoted its sole remaining farm, in Virginia, to strawberries. Rather than attack conventional farms head-on, as it did a decade ago, Plenty is starting with customers willing to pay more for a tastier strawberry.

Plenty已將位於維吉尼亞州僅存的農場轉型種植草莓。不同於10年前與傳統農場正面競爭，Plenty如今鎖定願意為更美味草莓支付較高價格的消費者。

文／Kevin Draper，譯／國際中心