Great article, some very good points. It is unlikely, as promising as vertical farming can be, that it would ever dent the issue of hunger in the developing world. The reason is simple: vertical farming is a first world project. It requires technology, lighting, specialized drainage, power, water. To ship that food, providing it is grown in abundance, to where it is needed the most would cost more than anyone would ever pay. Therefore, it will never reach those locations. Further, Google tried tackling the problem and then gave up; the crops grown simply did not correlate to what was needed and the project was not viable: http://www.techinsider.io/google-x-plan-to-create-automated-vertical-farms-2016-2