Edible Landscapes: Lufa Farms on Urban Agriculture
Photographed by: Lufa Farms
The world's very first commercial rooftop farm sits atop an office building smack in the middle of downtown Montreal. Lufa Farms is a 31,000 square-foot greenhouse that grows over 40 varieties of produce year-round. But this is about a lot more than a farm in the sky, it's a potentially game-changing prototype for urban agriculture. The story has an alluring moral too: that urban farming is both possible and profitable. We chatted with Yourianne Plante, Communication Officer at Lufa Farms, about what this can mean for us all.
1. Why rooftops and not backyards?
Industrial roofs are "lost space" and ideal sites to practice responsible farming on a commercial scale. During the winter, we derive half of our total heating from the building below as well as from the heat of the city. Come summer, the greenhouse mitigates the urban “heat island effect”, which refers to the difference in temperature observed between urban and rural zones. Much like a green roof, our greenhouse also helps cool the building below, lowering its cooling requirements!
Our greenhouse uses half the energy of other conventional systems and “will receive over half a million dollars in free energy every single year simply from the sun”.
2. Food security is an issue that is on the policy agendas of many countries, not least in developing areas. What does food security mean to you?
Food security is at the heart of our mission and is our raison d’être. In this day and age, we often do not know where our food is coming from or how it has been produced. We know our teachers, our politicians, our doctor, but most of us don’t know our farmers. That is, we don’t know the people responsible for feeding us! Lufa Farms exists to recreate that direct link between producer and consumer. We want people to share in the knowledge of where their food comes from and how it is grown.
3. What role has technology played in facilitating and improving urban growing conditions at Lufa Farms?
Technology has helped Lufa Farms achieve its mission to produce and distribute amazing fresh food almost every step of the way. There were 4 years of technological development leading up to the beginning of construction in September 2010: “we had to develop our own patent pending water circulation systems (which harvest rainwater and recirculate nutrient-rich water), policultures (growing systems that allow us to grow multicrops in the same greenhouse), and microclimate management software.”*
Lufa Farms now integrates many innovations aimed at improving growing conditions in a controlled environment. Among them, energy curtains, bio-controls for pests, closed circuit rainwater collection, and the precise control of microclimates to accommodate over forty varieties of plants!
On an innovative front, we are also an incubator of agricultural technology pertaining to farming methods, the use of bio-controls, multiple growing environments, etc., while we harness technology to make the distribution of food more efficient too. For example, our customers will soon be able to choose exactly what they want as the contents of their carts from a range of produce grown in our greenhouse!
*) Joining Yourianne is the voice of Mohamed Hage, the founding president of Lufa Farms. Quoted text has been drawn from Hage’s Ted Talk at l’Université de Montréal (TEDxUdeM). We’ve included the amazing 12 min. video at the end of this interview.
4. Have you noticed trends in demand for Lufa baskets since you began distributing in 2011?
Yes, and we’re very proud that the trend points to an increase! We started with 100 baskets in April 2011 and a year on we’re near capacity delivering 1,000 baskets each week. Direct distribution allows us to be attentive to our customers who rate the contents of their basket every week on Survey Monkey. Our customers also send us their comments by email, Facebook, and Twitter. If we put too many hot peppers in our baskets, we’ll know about it quickly! ?
5. In addition to being an amazing business, Lufa Farms is also in an important sense a ‘grassroots’ model promoting sustainable food sourcing in an urban context. How might economic and social policies be adapted to better serve the food security needs of the public?
This is a particularly important issue as evinced by the current Public Consultation on Urban Agriculture in Montreal*. Now that Lufa Farms has shown that it’s possible (and profitable!) to produce food on a commercial scale in the city, we should consider how best to support these type of projects. Public policies to undergird urban agriculture and food security still need to be created. One idea would be to design tax credits as well as other incentives for this sector.
There are also important challenges facing urban agriculture. For one, Lufa Farms (and the advancement of urban agriculture on a commercial scale) is engaged in a struggle for recognition: to be recognized as a "real" agricultural producer. As it stands, we do not have the right to the same privileges as conventional farmers (finance, insurance etc.). La Financière agricole even refused to help us because they felt our project was too "innovative".
*) Inspiration and information (in French) on urban agriculture in Montreal.
What about our education system, what role could it play to further knowledge of basic food and nutritional care?
The development of urban farms represents an incredible educational potential. The children and families who visited Lufa Farms last year came away with new perspective, were delighted and inspired. Why not have classes come garden at Lufa Farms and learn about agriculture, only a few metro stops from their school? Now imagine if the greenhouse was built directly on their school roof!
6. Are you familiar with Concordia and UQAM’s initiatives in urban farming? Thoughts?
They’re superb initiatives that educate and sensitize not only students, but also the workers and the community of Montreal. The educational work done by these two groups (and several others like GTAU) is quite exceptional and extremely valuable. We believe this work should be better recognized and supported by the City of Montreal.
7. It seems to me that there are increasingly volatile seasonal changes, with early warm weather followed by a return of frost, as well as late frosts. Could greenhouses mitigate some of those risks?
We believe there are many advantages to urban agriculture in greenhouses: they facilitate growing during the winter months, and make cultivation without herbicides or pesticides more simple as there are fewer insects to control for. Moreover, because we grow produce in a controlled environment it’s possible to create several microclimates for all 40 varieties of plants. We estimate that our yields are up to 10 times more productive than in conventional farming.
8. Why are hydroponic methods not considered “organic”?
In Quebec, when farming methods are above ground, so not in the earth, it is difficult to obtain organic certification. Yet, our rooftop farming methods allow us to use a fraction of the water and nutrients otherwise required through our closed circuit irrigation system.
9. Urban agriculture initiatives appear to be a great way to address problems of population growth and diminishing arable land. Still, should we not be concerned about air pollution in our food or pollution levels in urban rainwater?
Following one year of production, we haven’t noticed any effect of urban pollution on our plants. With 31,000 square feet of cultivation, the plants are constantly purifying the air. In fact, there is actually an advantage to being in the city where carbon dioxide levels are higher, since the latter is essential for plants to grow. As for rainwater from the aqueduct, it is filtered and recirculated. This also means that our greenhouse has no impact on water quality in the city.
10. Lufa Farms talks about how producers select growing methods and foods that are more likely to travel well (endure transportation and handling) and thus, most of the produce we buy from afield at our grocers has a particular ‘DNA’: it is produce grown for consumption through traditional food distribution channels. In growing and delivering locally, Lufa farms is able to actually change the criteria for selecting what to grow. What sorts of choices are involved in this?
For example, there are over 500 varieties of tomatoes that can be cultivated in a greenhouse, yet we only find a dozen at Metro or IGA. Since we aren’t facing the constraints of long-distance transportation and refrigeration, we are able to select what we grow with two criteria in mind: their great taste and nutritional value!
11. Have you found there is interest out there to replicate the Lufa rooftop farm? Residential/commercial?
Yes, and especially on a commercial scale. To be profitable, our next greenhouses have to be a minimum of 40,000 square feet. Luckily there is no shortage of huge industrial flat roofs in North America!
12. What advice do you have for people interested in their own urban farm? (Take a peak at the Rake’s Potted Farms project!)
All you need to grow your own food is the corner of a balcony, a sunny windowsill, and a little patience. To be sure, Lufa Farms is not a garden we can all hope to create, what with its 40 varieties of vegetables and freshly harvested produce 365 days a year! Still, whether you’re biting into a fresh tomato, picked on a morning in the middle of January from our greenhouses, or in July from your very own initiative- pure joy.
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Curious to hear more about Lufa Farms? Check out this awesome Ted Talk by the farm’s founding president, the eloquent Mohamed Hage. It will blow your mind and get you thinking about edible landscapes: how they can transform our cityscapes to provide us and our families with yummier, more nutritious foods that are responsibly sourced.
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