{"href":"http://player.captivate.fm/services/oembed?url=http%3A%2F%2Fplayer.captivate.fm%2Fepisode%2F52efa4ad-d8a6-481f-9b3b-1cce8d0578b1","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Captivate.FM","provider_url":"https://www.captivate.fm","width":600,"height":200,"type":"rich","html":"","title":"S1E3: 003 Stephen Pankhurst - Analyzing the Evolution and Profitability of Vertical Farming","description":"Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show process improvement engineer and vertical farming expert, Stephen Pankhurst. In this episode, Stephen talks about the origin story of his wildly popular YouTube channel, Exa Cognition, which touches on all things technology including vertical farming. He expounds on the barriers of entry, profitability and evolution of vertical farming.\r\n\r\nSpecial thanks to our Season 1 Sponsor\r\n\r\nIGS \u2013 https://intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/ \r\n\r\nKey Takeaways\r\n00:43 \u2013 Stephen shares his origin story and how he originally became interested in vertical farming\r\n09:25 \u2013 Stephen expounds on the time and energy that went into his YouTube channel dedicated entirely to vertical farming\r\n14:05 \u2013 Stephen breaks down the progress of technological advances in the industry and profitability of vertical farms\r\n20:29 \u2013 Stephen speaks to challenges, barriers to entry and the importance of light energy for vertical farming\r\n35:02 \u2013 The incredible growth of Stephen\u2019s video series and his plans for the future of this channel\r\n49:24 \u2013 Where listeners can follow Stephen\r\n\r\nTweetables\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s very clear that it [vertical farming] does work and it\u2019s working right now. There\u2019s a lot of companies having success with it. And the question I wanted to answer was, \u2018Can it really scale to the global level?\u2019\u201d (05:00)\r\n\r\n\u201cI guess you could say I get obsessive about certain topics and I kind of go all-in on them.\u201d (08:52)\r\n\r\n\u201cA lot of things that really surprised me when I was doing the research is just how absolutely massive agriculture is. I mean it is truly vast. Of our habitable land, fifty percent of it is agriculture.\u201d (24:25)\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen you first hear something crazy for the first time, you say, \u2018No.\u2019 And then, the more you start to hear about it, at some point it doesn\u2019t matter that much about the data you provide. At some point, once you\u2019ve been exposed to an idea enough, people tend to go, \u2018Yeah, yeah. Of course that was always going to happen.\u2019\u201d (33:59)\r\n\r\n\u201cMy initial idea for the channel\u2026what I really wanted to do was to take the evangelists of a technology and the critics and put them together against each other so to speak.\u201d (44:40)\r\n\r\nLinks Mentioned:\r\n\r\nStephen\u2019s LinkedIn\r\n\r\nStephen\u2019s YouTube Channel\r\n\r\nStephen\u2019s Email\r\n\r\nBooks Mentioned:\r\n\r\nPlant Factory\r\n\r\nAbundance\r\n\r\nBold\r\n\r\nIntelligent Growth Solutions\r\n\r\nWebsite | Twitter | YouTube\r\n\r\nSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300,"thumbnail_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/c58b6350-da17-44ec-ac00-3e82fef8b92b/image.jpg"}