世界最大の「屋上温室」開業　カナダ第２の都市で有機栽培

【モントリオールＡＦＰ＝時事】屋上庭園が新潮流となる中、カナダ・モントリオールに26日、世界最大の広さを誇る「屋上温室」が開業した。地元の食料需要を満たすため、ナスやトマトを栽培している。（写真は屋上に設けられた世界最大の温室。カナダ・モントリオールで）
　企業ルファ・ファームズが手掛けたこの温室は、１万５０００平方メートル（サッカー場約３面分の規模）を誇る。野菜の有機栽培場所として同国第２の大都市とは、あまりない選択だ。
　「食料を地元で、持続可能な方法で育てることが会社の使命です」。広報担当のティボー・ソレットさんは初収穫を迎える、大きく実ったナスを披露しながらＡＦＰに語った。
　同社がモントリオールに設けた「屋上温室」は、今回で４か所目。最初に温室が設置されたのは、２０１１年だった。以来、新たなアイデアを取り入れながら、競合他社と共に奔走してきた。
　レバノン出身のモハメド・ヘーグさんと米バーモント州出身のローレン・ラスメルさん夫婦は２００９年、「食料システムの改革」を志し、ルファ・ファームズを設立した。
　ルファ・ファームズの温室では水耕栽培が行われ、プランターにはココナツ繊維が並び、液体肥料が供給される。年間を通じて、レタスやキュウリ、ズッキーニやチンゲンサイ、セロリやモヤシなどの野菜と香草約１００種類が育てられているという。
　温室では、マルハナバチが受粉を媒介する。また、ハチやテントウムシがアブラムシを抑制するので、殺虫剤を使用しないで済むという。
　毎週、２万世帯分を超える量の野菜が収穫できる。野菜の詰め合わせの基本価格は３０カナダ・ドル（約２４００円）。
　今回開業した温室の１階には売り場があり、２０００品目近くが並ぶ。買い物に来たキャサリン・ボーニンさんは、新鮮さを気に入っていると話した。しかし、常に在庫切れの商品もあると嘆く。「ピーマンは手に入りません」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/08/31-13:07）

Building on a new hanging garden trend, a greenhouse atop a Montreal warehouse growing eggplants and tomatoes to meet demand for locally sourced foods has set a record as the largest in the world.
It's not an obvious choice of location to cultivate organic vegetables -- in the heart of Canada's second-largest city -- but Lufa Farms on Wednesday inaugurates the facility that spans 160,000 square feet (15,000 square meters), or about the size of three football fields.
The company's mission is to grow food where people live and in a sustainable way, spokesman Thibault Sorret told AFP, as he showed off its first harvest of giant eggplants.
It is the fourth rooftop greenhouse the company has erected in the city. The first, built in 2011 at a cost of more than Can$2 million (US$1.5 million), broke new ground.
Since then, competitors picked up and ran with the novel idea, including American Gotham Greens, which constructed eight greenhouses on roofs in New York, Chicago and Denver, and French Urban Nature, which is planning one in Paris in 2022.
A local Montreal supermarket has also offered since 2017 an assortment of vegetables grown on its roof, which was greened in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.
- 'Reinventing the food system' -
Lebanese-born Mohamed Hage and his wife Lauren Rathmell, an American from neighboring Vermont, founded Lufa Farms in 2009 with the ambition of reinventing the food system.
At Lufa, about 100 varieties of vegetables and herbs are grown year-round in hydroponic containers lined with coconut coir and fed liquid nutrients, including lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, bok choy, celery and sprouts.
Bumblebees pollinate the plants, while wasps and ladybugs keep aphids in check, without the need for pesticides.
Enough vegetables are harvested each week to feed 20,000 families, with baskets tailored for each at a base price of Can$30.
The company's online market also sells goods produced by local partner farms including bread, pasta, rice, etcetera, Sorret said.
On the ground floor of the new greenhouse, a huge distribution center brings together nearly 2,000 grocery products for offer to Lufavores, including restaurants.
Shopper Catherine Bonin tells AFP she loves the freshness of the produce but laments that some items are always out of stock. I can never get peppers, she says.

- Sales doubled during pandemic -

We are now able to feed almost two percent of Montreal with our greenhouses and our partner farms, said Sorret.
The advantage of being on a roof is that you recover a lot of energy from the bottom of the building, allowing considerable savings in heating, an asset during the harsh Quebec winter, he explains.
We also put to use spaces that were until now completely unused, he said.
Fully automated, the new greenhouse also has a water system that collects and reuses rainwater, resulting in savings of up to 90 percent compared to a traditional farm.
Lufa more than doubled its sales during the new coronavirus pandemic, a jump attributable to contactless delivery from our online site, says Sorret.
Profitable since 2016, the private company now employs 500 people, around 200 more than before the pandemic, according to him.
It is currently working on the electrification of its fleet of delivery trucks and is in the process of exporting its model to different cities around the world, starting with Canada and the United States, Sorret said.
What's a little crazy, he recalls, is that none of the founders had grown a tomato in their life before opening the business.