Giant vertical farm opens in Denmark

TAASTRUP, Denmark: A purple glow illuminates stacked boxes where lettuce, herbs and kale will soon be sprouting at one of Europe’s biggest “vertical farms” which has just opened in a warehouse in an industrial zone in Copenhagen.

Fourteen layers of racks soar from floor to ceiling in this massive, 7,000-square-metre hangar used by Danish start-up Nordic Harvest.

The produce grown here will be harvested 15 times a year, despite never seeing soil or daylight. It is lit up around the clock by 20,000 specialised LED lightbulbs.

In this futuristic farm, little robots deliver trays of seeds from aisle to aisle.

The large aluminium boxes are mostly empty for now, but lettuce and other leafy greens will soon be…