Common Sense for the Biochemist

I have a couple of friends who keep joking around about starting an underground dairy (don't ask). Apparently, underground farming (or pharming) has caught on in the minds of several other people too. It seems that a company called Controlled Pharming Ventures has built growth chambers in an abandoned underground mine. Their reasoning is that the chambers are easily secured (armed gaurds at the entrance to the mine), there is little threat from bad weather, and there is little threat of genetic contamination of surrounding fields or native vegetation. They also claim that the climate in the chambers is easily controlled due to the static temperatures of the mine. So the next time you see your local farmer driving his brand new harvester into a cave, don't think anything about it.