Robots grow and package lettuce year-round in Norway's automated farm

phys.org

3 pointssurprisetalk3 comments

It's a vertical farm - no greenhouses.

No mention of how it could manage to break even, with a business model that has such a disastrous track record. Are Norway's regulatory barriers and retail prices for lettuce high enough to make it work?

It sure beats the model Taylor Farms is using where you get your lettuce with the feces of Mexican field laborers on it. Cyclospora is a hell of way to enjoy your lettuce. The lettuce in the USA is a game of chance, if you roll the dice, it is very possible you will get some that has been watered with run off with cow manure, humane feces, or some other biohazard.

I would pay a premium $5 USD for a clean head of lettuce.

> I would pay a premium of $5 USD for ...

Understandable. But Taylor's screw-ups are not intrinsic to "sunlit dirt" agriculture, any more than three-week-old tuna salad is intrinsic to sandwich shops.

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