The future of food: inside the world's largest urban farm – built on a rooftop

In Paris, urban farmers are trying a soil-free approach to agriculture that uses less space and fewer resources. Could it help cities face the threats to our food supplies?

On top of a striking new exhibition hall in the southern 15th arrondissement of Paris, the world’s largest urban rooftop farm has started to bear fruit. Strawberries, to be precise: small, intensely flavoured and resplendently red.

They sprout abundantly from cream-coloured plastic columns. Pluck one out to peer inside and you see the columns are completely hollow, the roots of dozens of strawberry plants dangling into thin air.

From identical vertical columns nearby burst row upon row of lettuces; near those are aromatic basil, sage and peppermint. Opposite, in narrow, horizontal trays packed not with soil but coco coir (coconut fibre), grow heirloom and cherry tomatoes, shiny aubergines and brightly coloured chards.

“It is,” says Pascal Hardy, surveying his domain, “a clean, productive and sustainable model of agriculture that can in time make a real contribution to the resilience – social, economic and also environmental – of the kind of big cities where most of humanity now lives. And look: it really works.”

Hardy, an engineer and sustainable development consultant, began experimenting with vertical farming and aeroponic growing towers – as those soil-free plastic columns are known – on his Paris apartment block roof five years ago.

This space is somewhat bigger: 14,000 sq metres, the size (almost exactly) of two football pitches. Coronavirus delayed its opening by a couple of months, but Nature Urbaine, as the operation is called, is now up and running, and has planted roughly a third of the available space.

Already, the team of young urban farmers who tend it have picked, in one day, 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets of strawberries. When the remaining two-thirds of the vast rooftop of Paris Expo’s Pavillon 6 are in production, 20 staff will harvest up to 1,000kg of perhaps 35 different varieties of fruit and vegetables, every day.

“We’re not ever, obviously, going to feed the whole city this way,” cautions Hardy. “In the urban environment you’re working with very significant practical constraints, clearly, on what you can do and where. But if enough unused space – rooftops, walls, small patches of land – can be developed like this, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t eventually target maybe between 5% and 10% of consumption.”

Nature Urbaine is already supplying local residents, who can order fruit and veg boxes online; a clutch of nearby hotels; a private catering firm that operates 30 company canteens in and around Paris; and an airy bar and restaurant, Le Perchoir, which occupies one extremity of the Pavillon 6 rooftop.

Perhaps most significantly, however, this is a real-life showcase for the work of Hardy’s flourishing urban agriculture consultancy, Agripolis, which is currently fielding inquiries from around the world – including in the UK, the US and Germany – to design, build and equip a new breed of soil-free inner-city farm.

“The method’s advantages are many,” he says. “First, I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the fact that most of the fruit and vegetables we eat have been treated with something like 17 different pesticides, or that the intensive farming techniques that produced them are such huge generators of greenhouse gases.

“I don’t much like the fact, either, that they’ve travelled an average of 2,000 refrigerated kilometres to my plate, that their quality is so poor, because the varieties are selected for their capacity to withstand that journey, or that 80% of the price I pay goes to wholesalers and transport companies, not the producers.”

Produce grown using this soil-free method, on the other hand – which relies solely on a small quantity of water, enriched with organic nutrients, minerals and bacteria, pumped around a closed circuit of pipes, towers and trays – is “produced up here, and sold locally, just down there. It barely travels at all,” Hardy says.

“It uses less space. An ordinary intensive farm can grow nine salads per square metre of soil; I can grow 50 in a single tower. You can select crop varieties for their flavour, not their resistance to the transport and storage chain, and you can pick them when they’re really at their best, and not before.”

No pesticides or fungicides are needed, no soil is exhausted, and the water that gently showers the plants’ roots every 12 minutes is recycled, so the method uses 90% less water than a classic intensive farm for the same yield. The whole automated process can be monitored and controlled, on site or remotely, with a tablet computer.

Urban farming is not, of course, a new phenomenon. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, aims eventually to have at least 100 hectares of rooftops, walls and facades covered with greenery – including 30 hectares producing fruit and vegetables. A programme called Les Parisculteurs invites local groups to come up with suitable projects for up to a dozen new sites every year.

Inner-city agriculture is booming from Shanghai to Detroit and Tokyo to Bangkok. Strawberries are being grown in disused shipping containers; mushrooms in underground carparks. Not all techniques, however, are environmentally friendly: ultra-intensive, 10-storey indoor farms that have sprung up in the US rely on banks of LED lighting and are major consumers of energy, Hardy says.

Aeroponic farming, he says, is “virtuous”. The equipment weighs little, can be installed on almost any flat surface, and is cheap to buy: roughly €100 to €150 per sq metre. It is cheap to run, too, consuming a tiny fraction of the electricity used by some techniques.

Produce grown this way typically sells at prices that, while generally higher than those of classic intensive agriculture, are lower than soil-based organic growers. In Paris, Nature Urbaine should break even, Hardy estimates, some time next year – a few months later than planned because of the pandemic.

There are limits to what farmers can grow this way, of course, and much of the produce is suited to the summer months. “Root vegetables we cannot do, at least not yet,” he says. “Radishes are OK, but carrots, potatoes, that kind of thing – the roots are simply too long. Fruit trees are obviously not an option. And beans tend to take up a lot of space for not much return.”

But Agripolis runs a smaller test farm, on top of a gym and swimming pool complex in the 11th arrondissement, where it experiments with new varieties and trials new techniques. A couple of promising varieties of raspberries are soon to make the transition to commercial production.

Urban agriculture is not the only development changing the face of farming. As with almost every other sector of the economy, digitisation and new technologies are transforming the way we grow food.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things are beginning to revolutionise farming, from driverless, fully automated farm machinery that can sow seeds and fertilise and water soil with maximum precision to systems that monitor exactly how healthy individual animals are and how much they are producing (a concept known as the “connected cow”).

Other AI systems analyse satellite and remote ground sensor data, for example, to monitor plant health, soil condition, temperature and humidity and even to spot potential crop diseases.

Drones, too, have multiple potential uses on farms. With the world’s bee population in steep decline due to global heating, pesticides and other factors, drones are increasingly being used to pollinate crops fields and fruit orchards. To avoid wasting pollen by wafting it randomly at crops, or the damage to individual flowers caused by drones rubbing against them, scientists in Japan have developed a system in which a drone uses what can only be described as a bubble gun to blow balls of specially formulated liquid containing pollen at individual blossoms.

With global food production estimated to need to increase by as much as 70% over the coming decades, many scientists believe genetic editing, which has already been used to create crops that produce higher yields or need less water to grow, will also have to play a bigger role.

The technique could help build plant and animal resistance to disease, and reduce waste. For example, with methane known to be a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, research is under way into the stomach bacteria of cows in the hope that tweaking animals’ gut microbes may eventually allow them to produce not just more meat, but also less gas.

Urban farming of the kind being practised in Paris is one part of a bigger and fast-changing picture. “Here, we’re really talking about about building resilience, on several levels – a word whose meaning I have come to understand personally,” says Hardy, pointing to the wheelchair he has been forced to use since being injured by a falling tree.

“That resilience can be economic: urban farming, hyper-local food production, can plainly provide a measure of relief in an economic crisis. But it is also environmental: boosting the amount of vegetation in our cities will help combat some of the effects of global heating, particularly urban ‘heat islands’.”

Done respectfully, and over time, inner-city agriculture can prompt us to think differently both about cities, by breaking down their traditional geography of different zones for working, living and playing, and about agriculture, by bringing food production closer into our lives. “It’s changing paradigms,” says Hardy.

Neighborhood group pledges $12.3M to build Urban Farm in south Minneapolis

A seven-year push to build an "Urban Farm" in the middle of a heavily industrial area of Minneapolis is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute, or EPNI, recently told a Minneapolis City Council committee that it could raise $12.3 million to secure a 7.6-acre site of the former Roof Depot at the corner of Longfellow Avenue and 28th Street East.

The City Council has agreed to give EPNI two years to raise the money but is split 6-6, with one council member abstaining from giving EPNI exclusive development rights over the site. The plot sits next to a foundry and an asphalt company in an area that is zoned industrial but also is part of the city’s Southside Green Zone plan.

EPNI President Dean Dovolis told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS his group is confident they can raise the money but is concerned about the Urban Farm project becoming reality if his group is not given exclusive development rights at the old Roof Depot property.

This rendering shows the proposed Urban Farm Project at the former site of Roof Depot in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

East Phillips Neighborhood Institute

“We are telling the City Council we don’t need any more pollution here,” Dovolis said. “Let’s really honor the Green Zone philosophy and make this a green industry with hydro and agricultural, which would be a big part of this project.”

The City Council is eyeing the site as an expansion of its Public Works Department by putting offices there for its water and sewer maintenance employees because there currently is not enough room at the city’s water and sewer maintenance facility.

“There are other places the city could consider for offices for those employees, but to add more cars and trucks coming in and out of this neighborhood is just more pollution,” Dovolis said. “We have our own fair share of pollution here and this would be an opportunity to provide good, fresh food and much-needed jobs to this diverse neighborhood.”

The site was once on the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list but has since been cleaned up. Whatever chemicals remain beneath the old Roof Depot building and concrete parking lot do not pose a threat to the groundwater or residents.

At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, City Council Member Alondra Cano voiced strong support for the Urban Farm plan and said there is a price to pay to fix years of pollution in a neighborhood that affects mostly people of color and working-class neighbors.

“It’s definitely something big and something huge, and it is a legacy project that is going to significantly improve the lives of hard-working people,” Cano said. “And so I just want to gently remind us that this is what institutional racism looks like and this is how much it costs to fix it.”

City Council President Lisa Bender reminded committee members that the city still has an obligation to find more space for its water and sewer maintenance employees because the city has a dire need to fix and repair its water and sewer lines sooner rather than later.

“I also don’t think we can take for granted the fact that our city provides clean water to people because not all cities do,” Bender said. “The tragedy of Flint is an extreme example, but the folks who fix our sewer and water systems do not have a functioning building today and they need to locate somewhere.”

A final vote from the City Council is expected Sept. 23.

Inside the Chicago Urban Farm Cultivating the Means to Fight Food Insecurity

Urban farm Growing Home is working to shrink South Side food deserts

InsideInside an Englewood hoop house, dozens of tomato plants climb about seven feet into the air. Various greens, eggplants, peppers, and more sprout from the soil around them. A few participants in Growing Home’s workforce development program haul up vegetables from the ground as the intense summer sun beams down. They’re helping enact a plan that aims to transform both the neighborhood’s food and economic circumstances

This is just one of four garden plots cultivated by the nonprofit Growing Home. Some, like this one, grow tomatoes. Others grow greens. Growing Home — which has been cultivating since 2006 on the South Side — has been in a pilot partnership with the Greater Chicago Food Depository since June to provide sustainable and fresh food to those in need, while helping to grow the farm’s reach within the Englewood community.

Les Brown — who also started the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless — founded Growing Home in 1992 after perceiving an uptick in the number of unhoused people in downtown Chicago. A farm downstate was soon established, with the employment training program coming online in 2002. Today, the organization counts 17 full-time employees and a 29-member board, and has hosted more than 100 volunteers in 2021.

The swelling number of people experiencing food insecurity during the pandemic has put a strain on an already-fragile food supply chain, and local and national nonprofits have been angling to help. Federal assistance, too, has increased: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, just one of the federal programs aiding families and individuals experiencing food insecurity, counted more than 2 million people in Illinois accessing benefits in April 2021. That’s a 6 percent increase over 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program.

Just as other institutions have adjusted course during the past 17 months, Growing Home and the Greater Chicago Food Depository have been redefining their respective missions. The depository in particular has been trying to expand its reach. In addition to its partnership with Growing Home, for example, this year it will receive donations from Pitchfork Music Festival, slated for September 10 to 12.

Growing Home offers job training to about 80 members of the neighborhood each year. But finding a distribution mechanism for what it grows is one of the reasons it’s partnered with the depository.

“There’re stages of development to get a site going and then to continue to perfect the space,” says Growing Home’s farm and program coordinator Ezra Lee, while walking through a plot near West 59th and South Honore streets. “Currently, the plan for the site in development is a little more mixed-use. It’s not going to be strictly growing space. It’s going to be spots with blocked-off grow boxes, so people can have individual plots to grow on.”

Lee calls the grow boxes effective teaching tools. And providing the Englewood community access to them could help serve as a tool of revitalization while also fostering a better understanding of dietary necessities.

Brendan Kitt, the depository’s director of food acquisition, says his group is purchasing more food than at any other time in its 42-year history, in addition to receiving assistance directly from the government. But the pandemic has put a strain on supply chains, and certain foods and commodities have become less readily available. This has prompted the depository to investigate local partnerships.

“I think we’re really evolving in terms of our philosophy on that this year, thinking about what effect our purchasing dollars can have in the communities that we serve,” Kitt says. “I think we’ve really gotten away from the idea that more pounds of food equals success, and we’re starting to think more about where our dollars can go that is most effective.”

If produce is sourced locally, Kitt and his colleagues realized, the organization’s purchasing dollars would stay in the Chicago region, benefit area businesses and their employees, and increase the likelihood that people receiving assistance would have access to fresher food.

This fiscal year, the depository will procure 54 percent of its produce from area farms, distributors, and wholesalers. That’s in contrast to 14 percent in 2020 and 19 percent in 2021. (The food the depository receives directly from federal programs is not factored into those figures.) That produce, in turn, gets distributed to hundreds of food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters in Chicago.

“As an organization, we’ve identified these really high-priority communities in Chicago that have been disproportionately affected by food insecurity and food justice,” Kitt says. “So, we’ve not only been focusing our distribution efforts there, but also thinking about the vendors that could potentially be uplifted in those communities.”

Growing Home, located in Englewood, is one of those vendors. But, says Kitt, its workforce development program — which teams with area employers to place neighborhood participants in food industry and customer service positions, and the trades — sets it apart.

“They’re taking people from the community and teaching them job skills and [helping them find] placements, which is similar to the mission that we have at [the depository].”

At Growing Home, those missions are inextricably intertwined. During a 12-week job-training program, production assistants also take workshops on resume writing and professional communication skills, and learn how everything they do on the farm can — and will — transfer to other workplace scenarios. Everyone’s got to keep their desk in at least reputable shape in the office, and the food processing room at the farm needs to be kept pristine.

While helping to supply pantries with food to distribute can ameliorate immediate concerns, addressing the lack of opportunity for residents in Englewood is an overarching goal for the organization.

“Let’s just be honest. Giving people something for free today does not deal with the issue. That’s why the job-training program is so important. That’s why you’ve got to run [the farm and job-training programs] together,” says Janelle St. John, Growing Home’s executive director since 2020. “If people have money in their pocket, they tend to make better choices about what they eat, because they could afford it. What the farm is, it’s a tactic to get people to some sense of economic and financial stability.”

Centering the farm and training program in the Englewood neighborhood — where the pandemic has exacerbated historic disparities in economic development, job opportunities, and access to fresh and healthy food — has become even more important, St. John says.

When she took over Growing Home’s top post, St. John asked her staff if they felt Growing Home was a nonprofit based in Englewood or an Englewood nonprofit. At the time, about 80 percent of the food they were producing was being taken out of the area, some being sold at farmers markets across the city.

The consensus was that the group was an Englewood nonprofit. After that, the organization stopped trucking its wares up to the Logan Square Farmers Market. Now, more than half of the produce pulled up from the ground or plucked from those willowy tomato plants stays in Englewood, where it’s sold at a farm stand or distributed through the pilot partnership with the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and other community-supported agriculture programs.

With this redoubled commitment to the neighborhood, the Greater Chicago Food Depository partnership helps the farm more easily spread its harvest. Some food still leaves the neighborhood, but that’s because local pop-ups and farmers markets just couldn’t distribute as much produce as Growing Home creates.

“The food depository is a tactic to deal with food insecurity. And so that’s what I explained to the team: What is food [security]? It’s access to affordable, healthy options. The question we have to ask ourselves is, how can we fill that gap?” St. John says. “People think by standing on the street corner giving away free food; this is not how you do it. The reality is, produce is probably not the top of people’s priorities. But if we can partner with someone who’s already there and filling that space, and people are already coming to pick up food? Why not put recipe cards in their order?”

The recipes work to address a gap in knowledge that St. John and others at Growing Home have seen: Compounding the lack of available healthy food in the neighborhood is that some residents simply don’t know how to prepare produce like kale when it’s at hand. Or if their families would even enjoy it.

St. John paused for a moment. “You know what was very important in my communication with the food depository? I wanted the food to be fresh. Whether it is given to them for free or they paid for it, it should look respectable.”

One of the new avenues open to Growing Home since its partnership with the depository began earlier this summer and just around the corner, at the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Center on West 69th Street.

“Yesterday, the stuff that we got was just picked from the ground the day before,” says Capt. AJ Zimmerman, who oversees the center. “So, people are getting fresh, great-quality stuff. And I think it also helped people to understand a lot of times when they are purchasing things from some of the bigger markets, they are not getting the freshest stuff. A lot of food is only lasting a couple of days and expiring. I think it’s helping people to understand what a fresh-food desert truly is.”