In a survey of 370 urban farmers working in the U.Southward., researchers found that roughly ii-thirds of farmers weren't making a living. Only a tertiary of the urban farms were operating as nonprofits.

But the survey likewise demonstrated the huge multifariousness between what'south considered an urban farm–and it'southward likely that high-tech vertical farms, at one cease of the spectrum, may end upwards much more financially successful than smaller counterparts. When the survey was conducted in 2012, vertical indoor farming was at the early on stages. Now, companies like AeroFarms and FarmedHere plan to open up farms across the country. Gotham Greens, after a few years of successful performance in New York, opened the world's largest rooftop greenhouse in Chicago.

"I remember that the bifurcation–i.eastward., that between large, commercial, hydroponic operations and the smaller, soil based operations–volition continue," says Carolyn Dimitri, lead author and acquaintance professor of nutrient studies at New York University. "Growing high-value crops such every bit baby leafy greens is a great awarding of hydroponic farming: these crops are profitable because they high value, and take short growing wheel and are not infinite consuming. There will be more of these big calibration farms, but I suspect they volition remain contained to leafy greens and located nigh dense urban population."

In role, that's due to simply economies of scale. "Larger doesn't e'er mean better, just it helps with the fiscal viability if you can cross a certain threshold and get a sure amount of scale," says Viraj Puri, co-founder of Gotham Greens. "Obviously that's going to be challenging in cities given sort of competing real estate. From a pure play profitability, scalability standpoint, I think the technologically advanced urban farms probably have a higher likelihood of success."

For an outdoor garden, particularly in colder climates, it may be possible to grow only a couple of crops of vegetables in a year; indoor farms like Gotham Greens tin grow yr-round and utilize automated systems that also dramatically improve yields. Aerofarms, which will open a lxx,000-foursquare-foot vertical farm in an sometime warehouse in Newark this spring, can grow 75 times every bit much produce as a traditional farm on the same footprint. "We are price competitive today with traditional field farmers," says Marc Oshima, co-founder and master marketing officer of Aerofarms. College tech farms can also attract the investment needed to hire needed staff and set sophisticated logistics and marketing programs.

"We can encounter the needs of a large institutional client that will buy hundreds of pallets a week of product, versus some of these small-scale urban farms may exist running through a CSA model or hand delivering to local restaurants," says Puri. "While that's all very of import, all part of the urban agriculture farming fabric … there are some limits to scalability using that model."

Still, even indoor urban farming isn't a fully proven model yet. "It's very capital intensive," he says. "There's not a lot of groups doing what nosotros're doing that have been successful. And so information technology can be challenging in its own ways. Running any kind of commercial scale operation, let lone a farming performance, is going to be challenging. I retrieve it'southward a very exciting concept, merely I don't know if it's a strictly proven, fleshed-out idea."

For smaller community garden-style farms to last over the long term, Dimitri suggests that more should consider becoming nonprofits. "The smaller farms will struggle, like to their rural counterparts," she says. "The nonprofit model is helpful in that it allows farms to secure grant funding, and allows them to use interns and volunteers. Even so, raising funds is hard work as well, and the electric current interest in funding urban farms may not last forever."

Puri is more optimistic, proverb that smaller urban farms–like those focused on teaching–likewise play an of import role and are part of a longer-term shift in how people think nearly nutrient. In general, he thinks urban farming volition last. "I don't necessarily think it'due south a passing fad," he says. "I run into urban farming as i part of a much broader movement that's taking place across the state, where people are interested in transparency, how food is produced. Urban residents want to connect with how food is produced."

"Personally, I am not convinced that farming is the best apply of urban country," says Dimitri. "However, I think urban farms similar to Gotham Greens and Aerofarms will probably exist a permanent office of the urban nutrient mural."

Investors seem to concur: Aerofarms, for example, recently raised $xx million to assistance it continue to grow, out of $seventy million so far, from major players like Goldman Sachs and Prudential.

The larger world of agriculture is first to see urban farming differently as well. In February, Aerofarms presented at the annual USDA Outlook meeting. "It was the first time that urban farming was integrated into the program, signifying that we are at a major tipping indicate in how our industry is perceived and received," says Oshima.