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How is that different from a glass house or normal agriculture? A normal piece of farmland or glass house captures all sunlight falling on its surface for the produce that grows on the same surface, ratio 1:1. If you were to use sunlight falling on the vertical farm with 5 floors, it would have to divide the sunlight over more surface, ratio 1:5, so there is less sunlight per surface.

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Solar panels + lights together are a system for redirecting energy, and the efficiency “loss” is inconsequential. You can simply cover an adjacent area 10x the size to provide the extra sunlight.

But then why not cover the adjacent area with crops and sod the vertical farm, solar panels, grow lamps, wiring, and all the costs, construction time, maintenance work, etc. and just have a farm?

Because good land itself might just be more expensive to purchase and maintain than all of those systems in a highly dense footprint?

Instead of an adjacent area, the panels could be in an arid desert. Meanwhile, the vertical farm is in a population center and using less water

That is equivalent to saying "vertical farming is cost-effective where energy is free and land is scarce and expensive".

Oddly enough, precisely the opposite circumstance describes most farming.

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