Megatrend **#15** - 24 Hour Farming and Agricultural Reinvention: "𝑊𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑢𝑝 - 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑤𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡." - Futurist Jim Carroll

(Futurist Jim Carroll is writing a series on 30 Megatrends, which he first outlined in his book Dancing in the Rain: How Bold Leaders Grow Stronger in Stormy Times. The trends were shared in the book as a way of demonstrating that, despite any period of economic volatility, there is always long-term opportunity to be found. The book is now in print - learn more at dancing.jimcarroll.com)

Farming is transforming through vertical integration, robotics, data science, and 24/7 operations. This is not just about feeding more people, but instead, completely reimagining food production for the technology and digital age.

 I previously covered this megatrend in my "Big Future" series, which I ran a few years ago - you'll find the whole series over at - where else! - bigfuture.jimcarroll.com.

As I've always liked to say on stage, we're moving from a world in which we are no longer restricted to farming when the sun is up - we're moving to a world in which we can be farming 24 hours a day.

Here's what I wrote:

𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑓𝑎𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑’𝑠 𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.

𝑁𝑜, 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑒.

𝐴𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒!

𝐼𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑠𝑘𝑦𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑠, 𝑡𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑛𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝐵𝐼𝐺 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑.

𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑑𝑜𝑜𝑟𝑠 – 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒, 𝑤𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙.

𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒.

Although a few years old, the post is well worth a read, but I've also updated it a bit more here. You can read the full PDF here.

https://pdf.jimcarroll.com/Megatrend15-VerticalFarming.pdf

Let's dig in.

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𝐹𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝐽𝑖𝑚 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑙 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑠𝑘𝑒𝑑, 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑘𝑒𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑠, ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟.

**#Agriculture** **#Vertical** **#Farming** **#Robotics** **#Innovation** **#Technology** **#Indoor** **#Food** **#Digital** **#Future**

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/07/decoding-tomorrow-30-megatrends-15-24-hour-farming-agricultural-reinvention-we-are-no-longer-restricted-to-only-farming-when-the-sun-is-up-and-are-witnessing-the-dawn-of-the-digital-harv/