Canada: Montreal can become a self-sustaining, hyper-local city ecosystem of farms and gardens: Here’s how.
We did the math: we’d only need the equivalent of 19 shopping centres’ worth of rooftop greenhouses to provide all the veggies Montreal needs.
By JP Karwacki
Time Out
October 21 2020
Excerpt:
How difficult is it to set up an urban greenhouse like Lufa Farms’?
Our first site was tough. We did this crazy Google Maps survey of basically the whole island of Montreal to find suitable surface areas, then scouted the buildings and got in touch with building owners until we found the needle in the haystack that became our first rooftop greenhouse. It’s still one of the toughest parts of what we do, far from copy-paste, but we’ve learned a lot about how to find and adapt buildings as well as engineer rooftop greenhouses that are bigger and better each time. (optional)
What does Lufa envision for Montreal’s future in the year 2050?
Wow, okay, how about a city of rooftop farms? If Montreal can be growing its own food, from rooftop farms to community gardens and everything in between, and become a hyper-local ecosystem along with farms and food makers throughout the province, that would be incredible. And every form of urban agriculture, especially rooftop farms, will improve urban quality of life so unbelievably – creating more green spaces, providing educational resources, offsetting heat islands, and increasing sustainable infrastructure. That’d be a great city.
