Live call
Is indoor vertical farming viable again?
No-go since 2026-10-25 · ledger #39
The killing input, electricity, got more expensive. Waiting makes it worse.
Short answer
AeroFarms, AppHarvest, Bowery, Plenty and Kalera raised billions and filed for bankruptcy or shut down in 2023-25. Lighting a crop indoors costs electricity the sun gives a field for free, so the model needs power to get much cheaper. US retail electricity has risen instead: the BLS city average went from about 13 cents per kWh in 2019 to about 20 cents in 2026.
- Killing constraint
- Electricity price versus free sunlight
E1 Cost curve
Indoor farms replace sunlight with LEDs; the business closes only if power costs fall far enough to beat field-grown produce.
The metric that moved
Average US retail electricity price, city average (BLS, via FRED)
Dec 2019 $0.133/kWh → Sep 2026 $0.196/kWh (1.5× worse for the category)
Live series from FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), refreshed by the weekly job, last fetched 2026-10-26.
Data table
| Date | Average US retail electricity price, city average (BLS, via FRED) |
|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | $0.196/kWh |
| Aug 2026 | $0.196/kWh |
| Jul 2026 | $0.197/kWh |
| Jun 2026 | $0.198/kWh |
| May 2026 | $0.196/kWh |
| Apr 2026 | $0.194/kWh |
| Mar 2026 | $0.19/kWh |
| Feb 2026 | $0.189/kWh |
| Jan 2026 | $0.192/kWh |
| Dec 2025 | $0.189/kWh |
| Nov 2025 | $0.189/kWh |
| Sep 2025 | $0.188/kWh |
| Aug 2025 | $0.19/kWh |
| Jul 2025 | $0.189/kWh |
| Jun 2025 | $0.19/kWh |
| May 2025 | $0.182/kWh |
| Apr 2025 | $0.181/kWh |
| Mar 2025 | $0.181/kWh |
| Feb 2025 | $0.179/kWh |
| Jan 2025 | $0.179/kWh |
| Dec 2024 | $0.176/kWh |
| Nov 2024 | $0.176/kWh |
| Oct 2024 | $0.177/kWh |
| Sep 2024 | $0.178/kWh |
| Aug 2024 | $0.177/kWh |
| Jul 2024 | $0.178/kWh |
| Jun 2024 | $0.178/kWh |
| May 2024 | $0.175/kWh |
| Apr 2024 | $0.173/kWh |
| Mar 2024 | $0.174/kWh |
| Feb 2024 | $0.173/kWh |
| Jan 2024 | $0.173/kWh |
| Dec 2023 | $0.169/kWh |
| Nov 2023 | $0.168/kWh |
| Oct 2023 | $0.169/kWh |
| Sep 2023 | $0.171/kWh |
| Aug 2023 | $0.17/kWh |
| Jul 2023 | $0.169/kWh |
| Jun 2023 | $0.17/kWh |
| May 2023 | $0.165/kWh |
| Apr 2023 | $0.165/kWh |
| Mar 2023 | $0.166/kWh |
| Feb 2023 | $0.168/kWh |
| Jan 2023 | $0.168/kWh |
| Dec 2022 | $0.165/kWh |
| Nov 2022 | $0.163/kWh |
| Oct 2022 | $0.166/kWh |
| Sep 2022 | $0.167/kWh |
| Aug 2022 | $0.167/kWh |
| Jul 2022 | $0.164/kWh |
| Jun 2022 | $0.16/kWh |
| May 2022 | $0.154/kWh |
| Apr 2022 | $0.151/kWh |
| Mar 2022 | $0.15/kWh |
| Feb 2022 | $0.148/kWh |
| Jan 2022 | $0.147/kWh |
| Dec 2021 | $0.142/kWh |
| Nov 2021 | $0.142/kWh |
| Oct 2021 | $0.142/kWh |
| Sep 2021 | $0.144/kWh |
Graveyard
Companies that died proving people wanted this. Capital shown where it was disclosed.
| Company | Years | Capital | How it died | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AeroFarms | 2004–2023 | — | Chapter 11, June 2023; emerged smaller in September 2023 | source M |
| AppHarvest greenhouses rather than vertical racks | 2017–2023 | — | Chapter 11, July 2023; greenhouses sold off | source M |
| Bowery Farming | 2015–2024 | — | Shut down, November 2024 | source M |
| Plenty | died 2025 | — | Chapter 11, March 2025 | source M |
| Kalera | died 2023 | — | Chapter 11, April 2023; assets later sold | source M |
Dated calls
Each call is written to an append-only, hash-chained ledger before it resolves, with the probability, the date and the rule that decides it.
The US city-average retail electricity price for September 2027 (BLS series APU000072610) is higher than for September 2026.
Open · resolves 2027-10-31 · registered 2026-10-25
- Resolver
- Automatic: FRED series APU000072610, the 2027-09 observation is above the 2026-09 observation, using the first published values.
- Falsified if
- The September 2027 value is equal to or lower than the September 2026 value.
- Why this probability
- Retail electricity has risen year on year in most months since 2021, with data-centre load growth adding demand. That is the no-go for vertical farming, stated as a falsifiable number.
ledger #9 · 05a5cd3ff52b8625… · verify