Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshadrati. This week, produce, profits and perfume.

Clean tech is a tough industry.

Sure, if you invent a zero-carbon tech that's both scalable and cheaper than the fossil fuel alternative,

you can make billions of dollars.

But many ambitious green companies struggle to turn a profit.

Farming, which has been around a whole lot longer than Clean Tech, is also

a notoriously hard business to make money from. Vertical farming combines both of these things,

and the entrepreneurs behind it are attempting something extremely difficult, turning what has been

done forever on the X axis into something on the y, while also recreating

natural conditions such as sunlight, rain and wind in a completely artificial environment.

The tech for modern day vertical farming was pioneered in the 1990s and it has a big promise.

If it can be successfully scaled, and that's a big if, it will use vastly less land, less

water, fewer pesticides and fertilizer.

It'll cut down on shipping, it can be done in the heart of cities, and on and on.

The environment would be perfectly controlled, meaning crops are less likely to be affected by storms,

droughts, floods or disease that will all become worse as we continue to warm the planet.

But all of this requires a huge amount of energy to replace the sun and recreate what nature gives for free.

And because energy costs have gone up around the world,

it is increasingly hard for vertical farms to break even.

This year has seen several companies enter bankruptcy

as they've struggled to crack the vertical farming business model.

Can you do tubers, potato, carrots?

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