The original call
Original year: 2023
2026 assessment
Scorecard verdict: Live / too early
Live, but early, and I want to be honest about it. The technology works. The science works. But the economics have been brutal. Between 2023 and 2026 a string of high-profile vertical farming companies stumbled, scaled back, or went under, crushed by energy costs and the hard math of growing under artificial light. The vision is not wrong. It just collided with a power bill. This one is real, it is coming, and it will matter most where food security and land scarcity force the issue, but my timeline was more optimistic than the balance sheets allowed.