Montreal is now home to the world's largest urban rooftop greenhouse and farm

[sopas ej]

From Timeout.com:

Montreal is now home to the world's largest urban rooftop greenhouse and farm in the world

Since its completion on August 26, Montreal's Lufa Farms is now home to the world's largest rooftop greenhouse farm, the size of three football fields.


Photograph: Lufa Farms / @lesfermeslufa

At 163,800 square feet (close to three football fields and dwarfing the latest rooftop urban farm in Paris by over 10,000 square feet), the farm located on top of a defunct warehouse in the borough of Saint-Laurent is capable of growing enough food for 10,000 families, and has enabled the company to double it production from feeding 1% of the city to 2%.

That number may not seem like a lot to some, but the production is considerable when taking Montreal's long winters into account. Growing 25,000 pounds of tomatoes per week as well as eggplants at this new site, the combined efforts of the company's greenhouses now produce over 100 varieties of vegetables across what is 300,000 square feet of growing space.

"It’s an unbelievable step forward for hyper-local, sustainable urban farming,” said Mohamed Hage, Co-Founder and CEO of Lufa Farms in the press release announcing breaking ground on this latest greenhouse in November 2019.

The greenhouse's construction also makes it possible to "fight against heat islands in our district," said Saint-Laurent’s mayor Alan DeSousa, "where more than 70% of the surface area is devoted to industrial and commercial activities. And lastly, it confirms Saint-Laurent's position at the forefront of the new... particularly innovative green technologies.”

Using double-paned glass and two sets of energy-saving screens for its insulation, the greenhouse captures rainwater to be used in a closed-loop irrigation system, in addition to an on-site composting system. No pesticides are being used, plants are grown in coconut fiber bags allowing for the reuse of water and have introduced bees for pollination and ladybugs for pest control.

The new farming structure marks the tenth anniversary of Lufa Farms, co-founded by Lauren Rathmell when she was 21 with her husband.

Link: https://www.timeout.com/montreal/new...e-world-082820

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Wow amazing. I hope we see this trend take off

[Maldive]

Amazing indeed.

[MolsonExport]

Good for Montreal. My hometown just keeps a-wootin'

[C.]

Very cool - urban farming.

[jd3189]

It took one French speaking city to beat another with this type of project.

This is awesome and should be utilized in a lot of American cities. LA and the rest of Southern California has a lot of industrial land along with a good chunk of the Sunbelt cities. A lot of that land can be used for urban farming if not used at the moment.


Northern cities like NYC, Philly, Chicago, and Detroit can also benefit from something like this. Local produce will greatly help places that are good deserts in the urban areas.