The Future of Agriculture: Vertical Inhouse Farming as a High-Potential Market for the Textile Industry

As the glob­al pop­u­la­tion is expect­ed to approach 10 bil­lion by 2050, ensur­ing food secu­ri­ty in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble and resource-effi­cient man­ner has become a crit­i­cal glob­al chal­lenge. One of the most promis­ing solu­tions is Ver­ti­cal Inhouse Farm­ing (VIF)—a form of con­trolled envi­ron­ment agri­cul­ture (CEA) where crops are cul­ti­vat­ed in ver­ti­cal­ly stacked lay­ers, often in urban set­tings, using advanced cli­mate, irri­ga­tion, and light­ing tech­nolo­gies.

Accord­ing to NN the glob­al ver­ti­cal farm­ing mar­ket is pro­ject­ed to grow from USD 5.6 bil­lion in 2020 to USD 19.86 bil­lion by 2026, with a com­pound annu­al growth rate (CAGR) of 24.8%. Europe alone is expect­ed to account for a sub­stan­tial share, dri­ven by sus­tain­abil­i­ty reg­u­la­tions and increas­ing demand for local, pes­ti­cide-free pro­duce.

Textiles: A Critical but Overlooked Enabler

While much atten­tion in ver­ti­cal farm­ing focus­es on automa­tion and LED tech­nol­o­gy, tex­tile-based mate­ri­als are an essential—and often overlooked—component of the sys­tem archi­tec­ture. These tex­tiles per­form crit­i­cal struc­tur­al and bio­log­i­cal roles:

• Biodegrad­able grow­ing mats for ger­mi­na­tion and root sup­port
• Non­wo­ven and woven car­ri­er fab­rics to facil­i­tate ver­ti­cal cul­ti­va­tion
• Tex­tile-based sup­port cords for climb­ing plants (e.g., toma­toes, cucum­bers)
• Com­postable wrap­ping and pack­ag­ing solu­tions for post-har­vest han­dling

The demand for sus­tain­able, com­postable, and plas­tic-free mate­ri­als in agri­cul­ture is increas­ing rapid­ly. Tra­di­tion­al plas­tic-based grow­ing aids and pack­ag­ing are being phased out in favor of biodegrad­able alter­na­tives, cre­at­ing a grow­ing niche for tex­tile inno­va­tion.

Natural Fibers as a Strategic Advantage

This shift presents a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ty for the tex­tile indus­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly in yarn pro­duc­tion, tech­ni­cal tex­tiles, and non­wo­ven fab­ric devel­op­ment. Nat­ur­al fibers such as wool, hemp, flax, and cel­lu­lose-based fibers (e.g., vis­cose, lyocell) are par­tic­u­lar­ly well suit­ed due to their:

• Full biodegrad­abil­i­ty and com­posta­bil­i­ty
• High mois­ture reten­tion and breatha­bil­i­ty
• Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with organ­ic and regen­er­a­tive farm­ing prin­ci­ples

Wool, in par­tic­u­lar, stands out as a func­tion­al and eco­log­i­cal raw mate­r­i­al for agri­cul­tur­al tex­tiles. It nat­u­ral­ly decom­pos­es in soil, con­tributes nitro­gen and organ­ic mat­ter, and has excel­lent water-absorb­ing properties—making it ide­al for grow mats and sup­port sub­strates.

A Market Opening for European Textile Producers

Euro­pean man­u­fac­tur­ers, such as NN with its core exper­tise in wool pro­cess­ing, and spin­ning mills in East­ern Ger­many, are well-posi­tioned to enter this grow­ing seg­ment. The region­al tex­tile infra­struc­ture, tech­ni­cal know-how, and emerg­ing val­ue chains in sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture offer strong foun­da­tions for inno­va­tion.

Already, ear­ly movers like Bächi-Cord AG and Com­pack Swiss have demon­strat­ed the com­mer­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty of biodegrad­able cords and eco-friend­ly pack­ag­ing made from nat­ur­al fibers. Their suc­cess con­firms that there is a clear and grow­ing demand for sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al mate­ri­als, espe­cial­ly in indoor and ver­ti­cal farm­ing envi­ron­ments.

The Need for Clarity, Standards, and Partnerships

What the mar­ket demands now are clear­ly defined, cer­ti­fied prod­uct solu­tions that are:

• Free from microplas­tics and syn­thet­ic coat­ings
• Com­pat­i­ble with com­post­ing and cir­cu­lar sys­tems
• Scal­able and cus­tomiz­able for indus­tri­al farm­ing process­es

To address this oppor­tu­ni­ty, tex­tile com­pa­nies must:

1. Con­duct tar­get­ed mar­ket research into VIF use cas­es and required tex­tile prop­er­ties
2. Iden­ti­fy key indus­try part­ners in agri­cul­ture and urban farm­ing
3. Col­lab­o­rate with agri­cul­tur­al research cen­ters and sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion bod­ies
4. Explore pub­lic fund­ing and EU inno­va­tion pro­grams sup­port­ing the green tran­si­tion

Conclusion

Ver­ti­cal Inhouse Farm­ing is no longer a futur­is­tic niche—it is becom­ing a cen­tral pil­lar of glob­al food pro­duc­tion. In this trans­for­ma­tion, the tex­tile indus­try has a unique chance to con­tribute essen­tial mate­ri­als while diver­si­fy­ing its mar­kets and enhanc­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty per­for­mance.

By invest­ing now in biodegrad­able agri­cul­tur­al tex­tiles, com­pa­nies can posi­tion them­selves as tech­nol­o­gy lead­ers in one of the most dynam­ic and eco­log­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant growth mar­kets of the next decades.

Gherzi Germany as a Strategic Partner

Gherzi Ger­many can sup­port tex­tile firms by pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal con­sult­ing, mar­ket intel­li­gence, and inno­va­tion strat­e­gy devel­op­ment in this space. From fiber selec­tion and val­ue stream design to inter­na­tion­al bench­mark­ing and go-to-mar­ket plan­ning, Gherzi helps com­pa­nies align their capa­bil­i­ties with the needs of emerg­ing agri­cul­tur­al sec­tors.

Dis­claimer

This infor­ma­tion bul­letin has been pre­pared by Gherzi Ger­many to the best of our knowl­edge and pro­fes­sion­al judg­ment. It is intend­ed to pro­vide gen­er­al strate­gic guid­ance for the tex­tile indus­try dur­ing the ongo­ing PFAS tran­si­tion.

How­ev­er, Gherzi Ger­many assumes no lia­bil­i­ty for busi­ness, com­mer­cial, or strate­gic deci­sions made sole­ly based on this doc­u­ment. All guid­ance pro­vid­ed here­in should be viewed as direc­tion­al sup­port and does not sub­sti­tute for a detailed, com­pa­ny-spe­cif­ic eval­u­a­tion.

More detailed assess­ments, includ­ing oper­a­tional fea­si­bil­i­ty, finan­cial impli­ca­tions, and tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion, can be devel­oped with­in the frame­work of a joint project tai­lored to the respec­tive stakeholder’s role in the tex­tile sup­ply chain.

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