How Can We Scale Vertical Farming in Urban African Cities?

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The UN projects that by 2050, over 60% of Africans will live in urban areas. We’ll undoubtedly see a shift in how food is grown, distributed, and consumed. And with limited land, rising food prices, among other factors, the question we should be asking is not whether urban agriculture is needed but how we can scale it.

Urban farming has already gained acceptance, but its presence across African cities remains small and fragmented. So what would it really take to scale vertical farming in the African urban context?

Key Factors of Scaling Vertical Farming

Scaling vertical farming in Africa will not happen by accident; it requires a deliberate framework that aligns technology, governance, finance, and people. Here are some of the crucial enablers of scale in big African cities:

Localised Technology Innovation

The future of vertical farming in Africa depends on how well the technology adapts to local constraints rather than copying foreign systems. The dominant models in Europe or Asia rely heavily on constant electricity, precision climate control, and costly LED lighting — factors that make replication in African cities a bit unrealistic.

Energy efficiency and adaptation should therefore be the guiding principles. In Africa, we should be looking at low-energy hydroponic systems that rely on gravity-fed irrigation or solar-powered pumps that’ll reduce operational costs. 

We should experiment with off-grid renewable energy solutions to run aquaponic systems or vertical towers built from locally available materials such as PVC pipes and bamboo frames instead of imported steel.

Public–Private Partnerships and Policy Integration

Urban farming in Africa sits at the crossroads of agriculture, real estate, and urban planning, three sectors that rarely coordinate. Scaling vertical farming therefore requires governments to move beyond viewing it as a niche activity to treating it as part of the urban development plans by integrating green infrastructure and food systems into their masterplans. The government can allocate public buildings, rooftops, and spaces for vertical farms to create conditions for scalability. Such policies will increase food availability in the long run and even create green jobs and reduce waste.

If the government provides the policies and enabling conditions, private investors and technology providers, through partnership with the government, can be issued tax breaks or subsidised energy rates. This is to encourage the establishment of urban farming infrastructure and the contribution of technical expertise and management systems by private actors. 

Innovative Financing Models

Access to finance remains one of the biggest obstacles to scaling any form of agritech in Africa, and vertical farming is no exception. The capital-intensive nature of building vertical farms even at modest scale may deter banks that already perceive agriculture as high-risk. Traditional loan systems simply do not match the cash flow dynamics of such projects.

To bridge this gap, alternative financing models must emerge. A few promising directions include:

• Green bonds and ESG funds: Investors globally now seek sustainability-focused portfolios. Framing vertical farms as carbon-efficient, water-saving infrastructure could attract climate finance, especially as Africa is rapidly joining the rest of the world in promoting sustainability.
  
• Impact investing and blended finance: Combining concessional funding (from development institutions) with private capital reduces investor risk. The World Bank, AfDB, and regional agritech accelerators could help de-risk early ventures.
  
• Crowdfunding and cooperative ownership models: Startups like FreshBox in Kenya show how small contributions from individuals can fund local infrastructure. A cooperative approach could make vertical farms community-owned assets.
  
• Micro-leasing models: Allowing entrepreneurs to lease modular vertical farming units on flexible payment terms can lower entry barriers, much like how solar energy startups scaled across rural Africa.

Ultimately, financing must be designed not just to fund farms, but to build ecosystems like connecting energy, logistics, data, and marketing infrastructure in a single value chain. Else, we risk facing the same problem agritech startups face today, where there are solutions built without a stable and functioning ecosystem.

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Skills Development and Capacity Building

The most overlooked enabler of scale is human capacity. We can import technology all we want, or even develop it. But operational efficiency depends on skilled people who understand both farming and systems management.

At present, few African universities or technical institutes offer structured programs in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) or urban agritech operations. This creates a mismatch between innovation and human capability. To close this gap, three interventions are essential:

1. Training hubs and demonstration centers: Cities need spaces where young entrepreneurs and technicians can learn to manage hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic systems in real time. These centers can serve as incubators for new business models.
   
2. Curriculum integration: Agricultural faculties and polytechnics should integrate vertical farming into agribusiness and engineering programs. This will create a workforce familiar with both biological and technical processes.
   
3. Knowledge exchange and partnerships: African innovators should engage in regional and international collaboration through networks such as FAO’s Urban Food Agenda or the African Urban Forum, ensuring knowledge transfer tailored to African conditions.

Why Scaling Vertical Farming is Still Difficult

The most immediate challenge is the simple competition for space. African cities are expanding vertically, but not for farming. For housing, offices, and commercial real estate. The cost of a square meter of land or indoor space in central districts makes agriculture financially irrational compared to real estate or logistics use.

Even in low-income neighborhoods where land is cheaper, issues like unclear land titles, eviction risks, and lack of infrastructure discourage investment in fixed installations like vertical farms. For vertical farming to compete economically, it must either be integrated into existing buildings or supported through public incentives.

Thus, the problem is not just lack of land, but the opportunity cost of land in cities where urban farming is not yet part of the economic equation.

In addition, farming in Africa still carries a rural identity. Urbanites, especially the younger generation associate agriculture with hardship rather than innovation. While agritech startups have begun changing that narrative, vertical farming remains perceived as a niche, techy experiment and not a mainstream livelihood.

This perception affects everything from consumer acceptance to policy attention. If we continue to view vertical farming as a side hustle, it’ll rarely attract sustained investment. And where consumers doubt the safety or taste of produce grown in stacked systems, market adoption lags.

Without a cultural shift that normalises the idea of farming as an urban industry, scaling will continue to face social resistance.

How We Can Scale Vertical Farming in Urban Africa

• First, scale must begin with contextual models rather than imported prototypes. Vertical farming models must evolve to work with local materials and renewable energy sources.

• Second, there must be a clear path to economic viability before growth can be sustained. For vertical farming to scale, farms must be able to produce at costs competitive with open-field agriculture and imported food products.
  
  This can happen through cooperative infrastructure (shared cold storage, transport, and input hubs), aggregation platforms that link multiple micro-farms, and blended financing models combining government incentives with private capital.
  
  Scaling will depend less on the size of individual farms and more on building networks that allow them to operate collectively within city food systems.

• Third, integration with urban planning must become intentional. Most African cities are expanding informally, with little coordination between housing, waste management, and food production.
  
  To scale vertical farming, governments and city planners need to view food production as essential infrastructure, not a private venture left to fend for itself.
  
• Finally, collaboration is the only way to scale meaningfully. No single actor, whether government, startup, or NGO can transform urban food systems alone. Public-private partnerships can enable shared infrastructure, universities can lead research on low-cost local technologies, and private investors can back commercially tested models rather than isolated experiments. The key lies in aligning incentives: when urban authorities see food production as a resilience strategy, when investors see it as a stable asset class, and when citizens see it as part of their daily economy, scaling becomes a natural outcome.

Conclusion

Scaling vertical farming in African cities is a test of adaptability and the model will only thrive when it reflects Africa’s realities. If stakeholders can localise solutions, align policies, and make urban food production part of city planning, vertical farming could become a practical pillar of food security.