Depends how you measure that. With traditional farming, you are using solar energy by virtue of the sun illuminating the land. But you don't really measure it because you don't pay for that. Nor is it particularly efficient because you don't capture all of the light hitting the area and yields for a given area are lot lower than vertical farms because of that (and a few other reasons). But you do pay for land of course. That's why there are not a lot of farms in urban areas. The land is simply too expensive and scarce for that and the low yields and efficiencies mean that there are more lucrative ways to monetize the land. There are also other forms of energy involved with traditional farming that you do need to pay for including working the land and tilling it (typically with equipment burning diesel), water use (takes energy to clean up and pump around), transporting the produce (more diesel), etc. The further away your food is grown the bigger the energy cost. With the extreme case for things that we ship, or even fly, in from other continents.
With vertical farming, energy is a an important cost component; along with water, some nutrients, etc. You might even argue it's probably the biggest cost component next to perhaps manual labor. However, havesting produce in a vertical farm is probably a bit easier and efficient than in a field. So that leaves energy as the main cost difference. Water is quite easy to source, and effectively just takes more energy to clean and pump around and recycle. So, energy cost is really the key thing. Saving water saves energy. Because of the better yields per area you can farm in areas where it previously would have been too expensive and much closer to where the produce is consumed. Which means a lot of energy savings in transport, tilling, etc.
So, it's probably more energy efficient overall. Whether it is cost effective depends mainly on the price of energy and how efficient you are with that. The cheaper and more efficient that gets the better it is. And of course the environmental impact is pretty minimal if you use clean renewable energy. Very unlike traditional farming which is comparatively dirty. So, 60% efficiency gain sounds like pretty nice cost optimization. Further cost reductions are going to come from lower cost per kwh. There probably is a cross over point where growing strawberries in a field becomes an expensive hobby.
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Depends how you measure that. With traditional farming, you are using solar energy by virtue of the sun illuminating the land. But you don't really measure it because you don't pay for that. Nor is it particularly efficient because you don't capture all of the light hitting the area and yields for a given area are lot lower than vertical farms because of that (and a few other reasons). But you do pay for land of course. That's why there are not a lot of farms in urban areas. The land is simply too expensive and scarce for that and the low yields and efficiencies mean that there are more lucrative ways to monetize the land. There are also other forms of energy involved with traditional farming that you do need to pay for including working the land and tilling it (typically with equipment burning diesel), water use (takes energy to clean up and pump around), transporting the produce (more diesel), etc. The further away your food is grown the bigger the energy cost. With the extreme case for things that we ship, or even fly, in from other continents.
With vertical farming, energy is a an important cost component; along with water, some nutrients, etc. You might even argue it's probably the biggest cost component next to perhaps manual labor. However, havesting produce in a vertical farm is probably a bit easier and efficient than in a field. So that leaves energy as the main cost difference. Water is quite easy to source, and effectively just takes more energy to clean and pump around and recycle. So, energy cost is really the key thing. Saving water saves energy. Because of the better yields per area you can farm in areas where it previously would have been too expensive and much closer to where the produce is consumed. Which means a lot of energy savings in transport, tilling, etc.
So, it's probably more energy efficient overall. Whether it is cost effective depends mainly on the price of energy and how efficient you are with that. The cheaper and more efficient that gets the better it is. And of course the environmental impact is pretty minimal if you use clean renewable energy. Very unlike traditional farming which is comparatively dirty. So, 60% efficiency gain sounds like pretty nice cost optimization. Further cost reductions are going to come from lower cost per kwh. There probably is a cross over point where growing strawberries in a field becomes an expensive hobby.