Market Review

To properly explore the market landscape for our project, we will discuss the current business environment, consumer preferences, social trends, and environmental issues. All of the above are in perpetual flux, and the project will be evaluated on the current global and local market outlook with the addition of educated speculation.

The current business environment globally is extremely strong for the agricultural industry. With a projected global population to surpass 9 billion by 2050, food security is a major concern and the market for the general agricultural industry is growing steadily. Coupled with government subsidies and other financial programs for AgriInvestments and AgriStability, the business climate is primed for technological and economic growth.

The consumer preferences and trends according to the Produce Marketing Association are towards healthier and less processed foods. Consumers are looking for fresh foods and are driving up total store sales for vegetable and fruit sales. This shows an increasingly positive trend for the fresh and local agricultural industry that is able to meet the growing demand from consumers. The social trends for the food and agricultural industry is also towards increased transparency. Consumers want to know and understand what ingredients are in their products. This shift towards quality products is directly connected to an increasing demand for local quality ingredients that will come from the future local urban farms.

similar products

Many methods for agricultural urban farming exist, but very few are being adopted. They are all still early in their adoption phases and none have yet to become mainstream methods. A major draw-back is the high cost of developing these automated processes to run high efficiency farms.

Urban farms are gaining in popularity, and are also gaining interest from governments [9]; New York City has recently awarded grants to urban agriculture projects that reuse storm-water and the city of Cleveland has created a separate zoning code for urban agriculture in efforts to improve storm-water management and local food production[10, 11]. These projects do have some overlay with ours, since there is an element of water reuse and urban farming involved. These projects and services seek to have a positive environmental and societal effect by improving food security and water conservation, much like ours, but there are still some key differences. These projects are supported by the government, whereas our product would need to make a profit.

Many businesses have also installed “green roofs” onto their buildings. Fairmount in Toronto grows herbs and tomatoes to be used in their restaurant on such a green roof [15]. This is an implementation of urban farms that has societal and environmental benefit and is still used by companies that are aiming to make a profit. The regulations and political metrics are hard to gauge, since zoning laws vary by region. The difference between this project and ours is our implementation of a water looping system in conjunction with the urban farm.

Urban farming is not a novel concept. Similar products and services definitely exist in various capacities. Our project is different in that it aims to combine water efficiency practices and urban farming into a commercial product or service.