Analysis of the Economical Impact by Introducing a new Indoor Farming System

At a time when food procurement, food shortage, the stagnation in available arable land and rising population numbers are rising at an alarming rate, the importance of indoor farming is increasing. Indoor farming is an approach that allows fruits and vegetables to grow food in halls in racks, which gave birth to the term vertical farming. Vertical agriculture allows the optimization of food production by setting up adapted parameters in such a hall, thereby manipulating and boosting plant growth. However, since the necessary conditions for the growth can only be perfectly regulated for one type of plant per hall, it was considered to reduce the size of this unit and to design a box that provides the same functionality. In this paper I present a first prototype, which was designed as a Cyber Physical System (CPS), including power measurements of the included components. Furthermore, it demonstrates an economic approach for establishing this box in the Austrian economy based on a use case, followed by the advantages and disadvantages this change would entail. Finally, a calculation of expected costs in the first five years is presented.