Lufa Farms - The largest rooftop garden in the world

Here's something I didn't know: the world's largest rooftop greenhouse farm is located right here in the city. Lufa Farms is a Montreal iniative designed to make the best use of our city space as possible. The people at Lufa are "taking back" spaces that were once farmlands in the only way possible: building on top of existing infrastructure.

The 31 000 square foot greenhouse is capable of providing enough food to feed approximately 2000 people, and that's just one rooftop! The project is currently in its prototype stage, but you can imagine what sort of crops these greenhouses could yield if more roofing space was given over to their cause.

The Lufa greenhouse is part of an initiative to take greater responsiblity towards our environment. While not exactly organic, in the usual sense, due to the hydroponic growing methods, the food that is grown in the greenhouse contains no pesticides or other harmful chemicals. As well, though they do use fossil fuels to heat the green house, they nevertheless use heat curtains to trap the heat during the nights and cold periods, and use far less than other facilities of equal size would.

One of the greatest advantages of the project is the fact that the food is all local, which means that it is not only fresh, but also doesn't have to be transported from China or some other distant place, costing a huge waste of resources. How great of a concept is that, eating food grown right here in the city? There is nothing better than eating vegetables that come from your own garden, and the food from Lufa is on the same level.

While the greenhouse project is still in its infancy stages, 21st Century Food has already petitioned the good people over them to be able to have access to some of their first crops. Is this something that the future has in store for all of us? How about enjoying a pleasant lifestyle meal from ingredients that were picked the very morning you receive it?! All I can say is, I hope it works out!