SWOT Analysis Of Vertical Farming

In 1963, in Harvard, at the conference on business policy, Professor K. Andrews for the first time publicly announced the acronym SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). (Chermack et al, 2007) This is a simple but systematic approach to assessing internal and institutional environment technology or business proposal. For the strategic planning process, SWOT analysis is the primary, but important first step. With the SWOT model, the analysts got a strategic planning tool for their intellectual work. SWOT analysis allowed analysts to formulate known, but fragmented and inconsistent concepts of the firm and the competitive environment, in a form of a logically matched scheme of interaction between strengths, weaknesses, opportunities

In terms of space - expansion into unused city sites, abandoned mines, or farms allocation on the periphery of buildings is possible. All these objects can be converted into centres of food production, thus eliminating the need for expensive construction work. Also, increasing the useful area of cultivation is achieved due to the optimal use of vertical space. 1m2 of city land that occupies the vertical farm is equivalent to 6-10 m2 of conventional farms, and for some products, this ratio may be even higher, which is inconceivable in case of a conventional or greenhouse

The energy is spent on the operation of machinery involved in the food production, their transportation, and storage, as well as for the production of fertilisers, pesticides and so on. Fertilisers and pesticides, in turn, are derived from fossil fuels.

Furthermore, since production generally occurs far from the place of consumption, it requires a significant amount of energy for processing the finished goods post-harvest, and then for cooling, or other methods of the products conservation, and transportation to the place of consumption. In vertical farms, machinery fit for work only using electric power that can be generated from renewable sources can be used. These may be solar batteries, placed along the perimeter of vertical farms, wind turbines and methane generation from composting non-eatable parts of plants and animals. Although the balance of the energy, required for artificial lighting, heating, cooling and generation of biogas is an issue that requires further research, city farms significantly reduce the use of fossil fuels and the use of inorganic fertilisers. Meanwhile, since food products are grown closer to consumption points resulting in a substantial saving of fossil fuel, which also has a positive impact on the