Ethnic Chinese investor, China focused. China has removed a lot of arable land recently for urban development, people are urbanizing at the fastest pace in human history, and food prices are rising quite rapidly.
Your comments are logical for the US and your project sounds interesting. From what I understand EU agriculture is a sort of middle-ground, with smaller-scale automation.
There are pros and cons to both but I think you can get richer data for vertically initially to train systems than move on to larger scale horizontal farms. Tough this doesn't mean there are low hanging fruits their either.
In my understanding vertical farming is usually a hydrocultural practice (doesn't use soil). That works well for a lot of horticulture, but not so much for broadacre crops.
Is rice agreeable to vertical farming? i.e.: could the bulk of China's crops be moved to VF? In my understanding it's typically a hydroponic practice, so I imagine so.
Interesting thoughts on the reusing the waste. I toured the Carlton United breweries the other day, and found out it's their waste that has formed the basis of Vegemite since its inception. i.e.: there are massive wins to be made when you can "close the loop" on food production. When you've got production, processing, and reuse all under one roof like you could with vertical farming - gold.