Rebekka Boekhout

"Technology might be what powers the farm, but it is the consumer who ultimately decides whether it works. You can grow the best product in the world, but if people don't understand it, they won't buy it. That's why education has been just as important as production for us," says Kim Després, Senior Customer Marketing Manager at GoodLeaf Farms. The Canadian vertical farm is 20 minutes away from Quebec's largest city, Montreal.

"Technology might be what powers the farm, but it is the consumer who ultimately decides whether it works. You can grow the best product in the world, but if people don't understand it, they…

After eight years of farming, roughly $12 million in capital raised, and years spent building commercial demand for vertically farmed produce in Chile, AgroUrbana has temporarily paused production. As founders Cristían Sjogren and Pablo Bunster describe it, 'the plane ran out of gas'. Having parked the plane, the founders hope to refuel to continue the journey without risking a sudden crash.

"While there is a lot of competition in the market, most conventional farms are only providing products between October and March, then are quiet during the summer.

"Scaling a vertical farm is not the hardest part anymore. Replicating stable operations without depending on highly experienced growers is where the real challenge begins.

"The propagation phase makes it or breaks it. If you don't unlock the potential of a seed, unrooted cutting, or runner tip in the first one to two weeks, you've already lost part of the outcome.

"The propagation phase makes it or breaks it. If you don't unlock the potential of a seed, unrooted cutting, or runner tip in the first one to two weeks, you've already lost part of the…

"Most people walk into a place like this for a coffee, a meeting, or a pizza. They don't expect to stumble upon a vertical farm. Yet that's exactly what makes this location special. It creates a connection between food and people in a way that most farms never can," says Adam Abadi, Operations Manager at Harvest London, a vertical farm based at Canary Wharf.

"Many people see microgreens as an easy business to start, but it takes much more than 'just' growing a good product.

"What does the consumer really want?" was one of the most important questions throughout the event.