Vertical farming around the world: countries, companies and what happened

How vertical farming spread

Indoor farming under artificial light grew in two waves. The first was in Japan, where plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs) for lettuce spread from the 2000s. The second was a venture-capital wave in the United States and Europe in the 2010s and early 2020s, when companies such as AeroFarms, Plenty, Bowery and Infarm raised large sums to build urban farms; Bowery alone raised more than US$700 million. At the same time, food-importing states such as Singapore and the UAE backed indoor farming as a food security measure.

From 2022, higher energy prices, rising interest rates and weak retail prices for leafy greens put pressure on the industry. Several of the best-funded companies closed, filed for bankruptcy or shrank to one farm between 2023 and 2025. The sections below give each country's situation and the status of its main companies as reported by trade and business press. Statuses can change; each is dated to the report it comes from.

Japan: plant factories and Spread

Japan has the longest record of commercial indoor lettuce production. A 2022 study in Frontiers in Plant Science by Zhuang and colleagues, using Japan Greenhouse Horticulture Association surveys, reports that the number of commercially operating PFALs rose from 64 in 2011 to 197 in 2017 and has been flat since. More than 90 percent of them grow leafy vegetables, and more than 90 percent of those grow lettuce. The same study found lettuce PFALs can be commercially viable, with labour the largest cost ahead of electricity, but warned that a 30 percent fall in lettuce prices would make most of them unviable.

Spread Co., based in Kyoto, is Japan's best-known vertical farm company. iGrow News reported that its Kameoka Plant has operated since 2007, produces 21,000 heads of lettuce a day and became profitable by March 2013. Its automated Techno Farm Keihanna in Kizugawa, Kyoto, was built for 30,000 heads a day, with shipping starting in 2018, and targeted a 50 percent cut in labour cost through automation and a 30 percent energy saving through its own LED lighting.

An IIM Bangalore issue brief on Japanese urban farming (September 2025) names Spread, Mirai and PlantX among Japanese companies with automated growing systems, and describes NuFarm Shimizu's underground farm in Tokyo as an example of indoor growing below ground. The same brief notes that Japan produces only about 38 percent of its own food, which is part of why indoor farming there has public and corporate backing.

Singapore: Sky Greens, 30 by 30 and a changing target

Singapore has very little farmland, which made it an early supporter of vertical farming. Sky Greens, founded by engineer Jack Ng, began commercial production in 2012 with A-shaped aluminium towers about 9 metres tall, each with 38 rotating troughs that turn slowly through the sunlight. EcoWatch reported the rotation is driven by a water-pulley system using about 40 W per tower, and that the farm produced about 800 kg of leafy greens such as Chinese cabbage, spinach and kai lan a day.

In 2019 Singapore set the 30 by 30 goal: to produce 30 percent of its nutritional needs locally by 2030. On 4 November 2025, Mothership reported, the government dropped it in favour of narrower targets for 2035: 20 percent of fibre (leafy and fruited vegetables, beansprouts and mushrooms) and 30 percent of protein (eggs and seafood). The goal had been part of the Singapore Food Story strategy conceived in 2019. Minister Grace Fu said the original target did not mean Singapore had to produce every food item, and the new targets focus local production on the categories where it can make the most difference to supply resilience.

Around the same time, HortiDaily reported that Growy Singapore, operator of an 8,000 m² vertical farm near Changi Airport that opened officially in November 2024, entered provisional liquidation on 28 October 2025 because it could not continue due to its debts. Growy had bought the facility from bankrupt US company Kalera in 2023. In January 2026, Mothership reported the opening of Greenphyto's 23.3-metre indoor vertical farm in Jurong West, built at a cost of S$80 million, with capacity for 2,000 tonnes a year and current output of 200 tonnes.

UAE: Bustanica and Emirates Crop One

The UAE has a hot, dry climate and little farmland, so it treats indoor farming as a food security investment. The best-known project is Bustanica, near Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central. It opened in July 2022 as the first farm of Emirates Crop One, a joint venture between Emirates Flight Catering and indoor farming company Crop One, with an investment of US$40 million. The 330,000 sq ft hydroponic farm was described at opening as the world's largest vertical farm.

Emirates reports that Bustanica produces more than 1 million kg of leafy greens a year, about 3,000 kg a day, using 95 percent less water than field farming, and supplies Emirates flights and UAE retailers. On 28 February 2024, Emirates Flight Catering took full ownership of the business, renamed Emirates Bustanica, making it a fully UAE-owned company. Its products include lettuce, spinach, parsley and kale.

Netherlands: greenhouse country, cautious vertical farming

The Netherlands has one of the most advanced greenhouse horticulture sectors and is home to suppliers of lighting and technology that vertical farms use, such as Signify. Its own vertical farming sector has moved more slowly. At a Fieldlab Vertical Farming event reported by Vertical Farm Daily in May 2026, Wageningen University & Research's Coert Bregman said growing leafy vegetables in Dutch vertical farms is difficult, though not impossible, because of energy costs and competition from highly efficient greenhouses.

Speakers saw hybrid models, where vertical farms complement greenhouses, as the route to scale, and pointed to niches that already pay: climate chambers for propagating ornamental plants, specialty herbs such as basil and oregano, and research on crops such as freesia and indoor grass for fodder. Amsterdam-based Growy was described as operating 48 climate chambers, supplying more than 500 supermarkets and growing 63 crop varieties. The Fieldlab brings together Delphy, Signify, Wageningen University & Research and others.

United States: AeroFarms, Plenty and Bowery

The United States had the most heavily funded vertical farms and the most visible failures. AeroFarms, an aeroponic grower, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2023 and emerged in September 2023, AgFunder News reported, with investors led by Grosvenor Food & AgTech and a plan to focus only on its farm in Danville, Virginia. In December 2025 the company announced the Virginia farm would close after its largest investor changed priorities, then postponed the closure as short-term funding came in (Cardinal News, March 2026). In April 2026 it was acquired by an affiliate of Palm Ventures, a family investment office, and named Gustavo Burger chief executive; the 140,000 sq ft farm grows microgreens such as broccoli and kale (Cardinal News, June 2026).

Plenty Unlimited filed for Chapter 11 on 23 March 2025 in the Southern District of Texas, with US$20.7 million of debtor-in-possession financing, to narrow its business to premium strawberries grown at its farm in Richmond, Virginia (PR Newswire, March 2025). The company announced it completed its restructuring and emerged from Chapter 11 on 29 May 2025. Bowery Farming, which had raised more than US$700 million and was valued at over US$2 billion in 2021, was reported by TechCrunch on 4 November 2024, citing PitchBook, to be shutting down. Container farm maker Freight Farms ceased operations and filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on 30 April 2025, according to the Boston Globe.

China: state-backed plant factories

China's vertical farming is led by research institutes and state-linked companies. In December 2023, the Global Times reported that the Institute of Urban Agriculture of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences had unveiled an unmanned vertical plant factory in Chengdu, Sichuan, with 20 growing layers, which it described as the most layers of any such facility. The report said the factory can harvest lettuce about every 35 days, more than 10 harvests of green vegetables a year, and produce over 50 tonnes of green vegetables a year, which it put as equal to about 60 mu (4 hectares) of farmland.

Automation is the theme of the Chengdu project: the Global Times described seeding, growing and harvesting run with minimal human work, backed by the institute's own crop varieties and control systems, and year-round production regardless of climate. Published data on the costs and profitability of such factories is limited, so claims about output per unit of land should be read as the operators' own figures. For outside observers, the useful point is the scale of public research investment in automated indoor growing.

Europe: Infarm's exit and a shrinking field

Berlin-based Infarm was once one of Europe's best-known vertical farming companies. On 17 May 2023, Just Food reported that Infarm would leave Europe to focus on regions with lower energy prices and healthier market demand, closing or consolidating operations in the UK, France and the Netherlands and laying off about 500 workers. The company said it would concentrate on North America, with an existing farm in Toronto and a growing centre under development in Baltimore.

Infarm itself named high energy costs and difficult economic conditions as reasons for leaving, and energy is the biggest running cost of any indoor farm. The Dutch Fieldlab discussion in 2026 pointed the same way: vertical growing in Europe pays best where it serves a clear niche, such as propagation, specialty herbs or research, or where it is combined with greenhouse production rather than competing with it. Growy's Amsterdam operation, supplying hundreds of supermarkets, is the example the Dutch sector points to.

Vertical farming by country: summary table

The table summarises each country's position, the main reason it invested in vertical farming, its best-known projects, and the status reported by the press at the date shown. It is a snapshot for comparison, not a full list of companies. Company situations change quickly in this sector, so check the latest reports before relying on any single status for a business decision.

What the global record means for India

The global record points to a few lessons. The farms that have lasted, such as Spread in Japan and Bustanica in the UAE, grew a narrow range of crops at scale for buyers who valued them, and in the UAE's case had an anchor customer in Emirates. The farms that failed often raised large sums, built big facilities quickly, and could not sell produce at prices that covered electricity, labour and debt. Japan's experience shows that even working lettuce factories are sensitive to price falls.

For India, the same maths applies with Indian inputs: electricity tariffs, labour costs, cooling in summer heat, and the prices that hotels, cafés, retailers and consumers will pay for premium greens, herbs and microgreens. Start with a crop and a buyer, size the farm to that demand, and treat energy per kilogram as the number that decides viability. Sunlit rooftop systems and towers, which avoid most lighting and cooling costs, deserve a serious look before a sealed indoor farm.

Planning a vertical farm in India with Garden & Acre

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