What if The Most Important Threat to Western Indoor Farms Wasn’t Soaring Energy Prices Nor Transparency Issues But Geopolitical Tensions With China?

The recent bill to reduce America's reliance on Chinese tech and funding may lead these sectors in the midst of a geopolitical war...

Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

China is a growing country set to reach 1.5Bn inhabitants by 2030 but faces considerable challenges in feeding its population with diminishing arable land, a population that is urbanized, and the effects of climate change affecting the yearly output of a country seeking to be food secure. In fact, for the past couple of weeks, China has faced extreme heatwaves and droughts potentially affecting this year’s fall harvest, spiking concerns amongst the highest spheres of the Communist Party.

Facing increasing challenges, the government has decided for a number of years now to invest heavily in new technologies in Agriculture and in indoor farms/ controlled environment agriculture. This has given rise to companies such as SANANBIO, Pinduoduo PDD 0.00%↑, and Bright Food among the other companies as well as investment in Western companies such as Tencent’s participation in Future Crops Funding round, or DCM Ventures’ participation in Plenty’s® USD 200 million funding round.

Now, with the current tensions rising between China and the US added to the American program aimed at decreasing its reliance on Chinese Tech and Funding, Indoor Farming, Vertical farming, and other AgTech segments may find themselves in the midst of a Geopolitical war…