People want food for immediate pleasures, not just to meet organism sustainment needs through nutrients. The financials of a vertical farms set up in an existing underutilized skyscraper is not comparable to the financials of a purpose-built facility above ground or underground. But speaking only of underutilized skyscrapers, when 'lack of profitability' is discussed, I am unclear what comparisons are accounted for.

Input costs for conventional farms include drying legumes for a regulated market, regulate crop stress responses, disease resistance, soil amendments and erosion, irrigation infrastructure cost-shares and grants to incentivize producers to undertake sustainable practices, various types of insurance and labour costs. Inflation also does not affect producers equally. Fresh produce growers do not benefit from commodity price increases in the same way when faced with international subsidized competitors.

While not every crop is best for vertical farm growing conditions, for the reasons above when reviewed on a ten-year basis certain types of crops are profitable in underutilized skyscrapers due to controls for magnitude of variability.