The Promise Of Indoor, Hurricane-Proof By Meagan Flynn

In Meagan Flynn’s article “The Promise of Indoor, Hurricane-Proof “Vertical” Farms,” published in The Atlantic, she explains a new type of farm that is emerging. She uses Federico Marques’s farm as her main example of these new farms. She explains that they are vertical farms, “where plants are stacked in trays on shelves, instead of laid out horizontally across larger plots of land. In these high-tech structures, plants don’t rely on sunlight or soil, rainwater or pesticides, but LED lights and minerals instead” (Flynn). Next, Meagan tells the reader of the benefits of vertical farms: they save space, are a more economical way of producing food, and reduce the costs of getting food to the people. Another important benefit is that vertical farms are indoors, making them rely less on the weather, so like in Marques’s case, farmers do not lose all of their crops to natural disasters like the Houston hurricane. These vertical farms are also more compact, so more food can be produced to sustain our growing population. According to Flynn, Marques is not the first person to try this idea, but previous attempts have often failed
Her argument is sound because she discusses the problems then logically explains how vertical farms can help, instead of just saying they will help. Her explanations are easy to follow and make sense to the reader, so it becomes difficult to disagree with her argument. She does, however, in the beginning of her article, say that vertical farms can reduce costs and are more economical, but later explains that one of the challenges vertical farms face is high costs. The cost after the produce is grown and the cost of running the vertical farms are different, so Flynn is not contradicting herself necessarily, but she does not thoroughly explain this difference, making it slightly