Could Tea Farming Go Vertical?

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Urbanites might someday be able to enjoy freshly plucked tea leaves for use in cooking, fresh tea infusions and production of specialty tea if a Chinese initiative in high-rise farming succeeds.

SananBio, a leading Chinese maker of equipment for the vertical farm industry, is experimenting with indoor cultivation of tea. Galen Zhou, director of sales, told Vertical Farm Daily that controlled environment agriculture (CEA) allows tea to be grown without pesticides while improving flavor. By managing variables like cultivation technique, soil condition, temperature, and light, the system can ensure that the tea produced is consistently of good quality.

Camellia sinensis is a crop with a value that can be high enough to justify the elevated investment and operating costs entailed in vertical farming. In China, for example, tea sells for an average of $32 per kilogram. China's tea exporters could benefit from vertical farming, since some domestically produced teas have pesticide residues above the levels accepted in Europe and the United States.

Founded in 2015, SananBio has a 40,000 m² facility in Fujian Province that produces not only tea leaf but various other crops such as vegetables, edible flowers, medicinal plants, and fruit. The company also has a research facility in Anhui Province and operates indoor farms in several major cities in China.

The company helps farmers obtain bank loans and provides advice on sales and marketing. Zhou notes that high investment costs are a concern for many growers, but concerns over food security and rising logistics costs are creating opportunities for vertical farming.

Investment in hydroponic equipment and urban farms accelerated during the pandemic. The Greenbelt Foundation in Ontario, Canada, estimates that $3.1 billion has been invested in vertical farms worldwide.

For now, however, vertical farming is a niche industry that encloses just 75 acres (30 hectares). Conventional greenhouse farming is vastly larger, covering some 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares).