France: The word’s largest rooftop urban farm sits on top of a Paris building
137 wooden crates can be leased by local residents to cultivate their personal vegetable gardens.
By Riccardo Bianchini
Inexhibit – 2021-07-03
Excerpt:
The most interesting aspect of NU-Paris is certainly how it produces food in the heart of a western metropolis, though; to date, about one-third of the planned growing area has been fully implemented to produce up to 1000 kg of organic fresh produce daily with twenty people working in the farm.
Yet, to grow such a relevant amount of fruits and vegetables on an urban rooftop, furthermore without using pesticides, required ingenious technical solutions. For example, most plants are grown in raised wooden containers, horizontal hydroponic beds, or in vertical aeroponic “columns” (without soil or other growing mediums) and watered by a closed irrigation system. These solutions, on the one side, reduce the structural loads on the pavilion structure that would result from thick soil layers, and, on the other side, minimize water consumption and the need for pest-control systems.
Currently, about 30 species of vegetables, herbs, and fruits are cultivated at NU-Paris, including tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, lettuces, spinach, chard, carrots, cucumbers, green beans, radishes, zucchini, pumpkins, basil, mint, sage, strawberries, and raspberries. The rooftop farm also produces jams and sauces in collaboration with Re-Belle, a charity for the relief of unemployment, and organizes educational workshops and events. The farm’s produce is mainly sold to Parisian restaurants and only a small amount is for direct selling to private customers. Yet, local residents can lease wooden crates where to install and operate small vegetable plots on their own; 137 private crates, with a total cultivable area of 250 sqm, are available at present.
