Canada’s Home to the World’s Largest Rooftop Greenhouse
Growing food near where people live is one of the most sustainable agricultural practices. Now a company built the largest commercial rooftop greenhouse in Montreal, Canada that will allow it to deliver fresh sustainably grown veggies to the people who live in the city.
Lufa Farms was founded 10 years ago with the mission of growing food nearby the people who use it. That’s why they build the first of their commercial rooftop greenhouses. Since then the company keeps growing and building bigger and better greenhouses to grow all the vegetables they need for their twice daily deliveries to Montreal, Quebec City, and nearby communities.
The company said that their rooftop hydroponic farms are very efficient but to feed all of Montreal they would need to convert 19 rooftops but they are not there yet. The new super large rooftop greenhouse is their fourth and it is larger than three American football fields according to Montreal CTV News.
This greenhouse that sits on top of an old Sears warehouse in Saint-Laurent is so large that it can grow enough food to feed over 10,000 families per year. Currently, Lufa Farms is delivering 25,000 pounds of tomatoes per week as well as eggplants, herbs, microgreens, bell peppers, and cucumbers. Enough to feed two percent of Montreal.
It’s, “a ton of food, year-round, in a place that has a very long, cold winter,” Lauren Rathmell who created the company with her husband told CTV News. She has a degree in biochemistry from McGill University and is the greenhouse director.
Besides using far less water growing food hydroponically, the food is grown in a coconut fiber substrate using a closed-loop system and is fed all the necessary nutrients from salts dissolved in water according to the company. Lufa Farms also uses bees and ladybugs for pollination and pest control.
There’s two ways to purchase the fresh grown vegetables from the farms, you can purchase a base basket and then customize it the way you want or you can use the Super Lufavore option and the basket will be built for you. You can always change your account setting and suspend deliveries if needed.
The vegetables are delivered to convenient pick-up locations or you can have the produce delivered straight to your door. Lufa Farms also partners with other companies to bring you milk, eggs, pasta, vegan plant-based proteins, and more. All are available on their online farmer’s market.
The company hopes to expand to other Canadian cities as well. So, look for a rooftop greenhouse coming to a city near you. In the meantime, you can purchase hydroponically grown produce in your local market. In fact, some greens are actually being grown in supermarkets. You can’t get any more local than that.
