Global food production faces increasing challenges due to population growth, urbanization, and climate change. Even in developed countries such as the United States, a significant number of people experience food insecurity (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2025). Therefore, alternative crop growth methods such as vertical farming are considered. Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in an indoor facility by stacking multiple layers of production (Agritecture & CEAg World, 2025). While the vertical farming market is expected to grow yearly, multiple large bankruptcies of vertical farming companies in the U.S. in 2023 showed that it has severe drawbacks and difficulties competing with traditional farming (field farming). Therefore, a framework is needed to assess the viability of vertical farming. This led to the following research question: Which decision support framework can support the assessment of the viability of vertical farming?

The research approach used to support the development of the decision support framework is a single case study method. The case was on an ongoing project at the York State Fair in York, Pennsylvania, in the United States, which involved several stakeholders. In this research, the advantages and disadvantages of vertical farming were first compared to traditional farming in terms of economic viability. Disadvantages such as high investment costs and energy usage were found to be more financially impactful than the advantages such as no-pesticide use, and water efficiency.

It was found that multiple important stakeholders had concerns about profitability. In addition, there is potential for conflict due to different interests in what the workforce must be in the project. The most suitable solution was to include educational aspects such as hiring interns. In addition, to cope with possible external factors such as shortages in the agricultural workforce, including automation via robotics, could make the project more resilient. The business models best suited to the project are the differentiation and experience business models. Based on the factors critical to the viability of vertical farming, a financial model tool was made in Excel. This tool can calculate a vertical farm project's profitability and test how resilient the profitability is to changes in the critical parameters.

A decision support framework was created, consisting of the following six stages: “identify drivers,” “analyze business environment,” “analyze stakeholder alignment,” “develop business case,” “analyze viability,” and “implement vertical farm initiative.” The stakeholder methods that should be used include a power-interest matrix, value network analysis, and, depending on potential conflicts between stakeholders, a system diagram analysis. A Business Model Canvas can be used to develop the business case. The vertical farm's viability can be assessed using the financial model tool. If the viability is satisfactory, the vertical farming initiative can be implemented. Private organizations and public institutions can use the decision support framework to assess whether a vertical farming initiative is profitable in a specific location, what type of business model fits the vertical farm, and whether policies need to be changed to increase a vertical farm’s viability.