Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousands of miles. Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history. We waste hydrocarbons in a criminal fashion and our ancestors will absolutely hate our guts for it. Why should we burn up billions of years of oil inside of ~200 years just so that we can eat strawberries in NYC during winter? It is INSANE. The decision-making process we use is only what will make money in the short term. The issue of cost externalization by companies is well documented by economists. Just because it appears "cheap" to use factory farm methods, N-P-K based fertilizers, etc., doesn't mean the long term effects already showing up are not going to severely impact the food chain inside of our lifetimes.

Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert. We should start creating food forests, this is a very promising sustainable way to feed people and all of the unemployment we experience can be solved by transitioning a larger % of our population to food production as a job, just like our grandparents used to do it.

The desertification caused by agriculture and our increasingly desperate use of technology to cover up the fundamental flaws in how we feed ourselves is increasing rapidly. The water table in many places around the planet is being depleted faster than it can restore itself. These issues are NOT going away and they are far more important than coupons for cupcakes and the like.