Most shoppers get their fresh produce after a quick trip to the grocery store. But Paris, France has an incredible produce concept that might just spread across the globe.
All about urban farms
Agripolis founder Pascal Hardy founded his organization with a dream. He wanted to create a cleaner and healthier source of food for the Paris neighborhood of Le Marais and surrounding areas. His dream led to the creation of a rooftop farm built ontop of the Paris Exhibition Center.
This urban farm is the largest in the world, with a size that measures about two soccer pitches. It uses acroponic techniques to grow naturally raised produce that supplies residents, businesses, and more.
The rooftop farm’s design avoids the use of pesticides or soil as well as a closed-circuit watering system to eliminate contaminates. Plants grow up vertical trellises that allow easier water and nutrient absorption with mist sprays. The design produces tastier fruits and vegetables faster.
The produce aisle up the stairs
As cities expand, space comes at more of a premium. Streets and aisles are cramped and less green, which means food has to come from outside the cities. Grocery stores help, but they don’t address space waste across most cities. The rooftop farm in Paris is part of a spreading initiative to reverse this downward trend.
By using rooftop space for growing vegetables, local areas can produce fresh tasting food while saving money on transportation. It also means less waste and spoilage as food doesn’t have to travel as far. This reduced cost isn’t just for the food producers as customers benefit as well.
Just imagine being able to pay 15 euros (about $18 US) to receive a basket of produce that includes mint or sage, a head of lettuce, sprouts, aubergines, tomatoes, and other tasty fruits and vegetables.
The farm to table experience
Some might wonder how this system benefits businesses like restaurants and hotels. Consider how these businesses require fresh food to attract and keep their customers. If local businesses can save money by shopping from a rooftop farm, then that would encourage growth and keep money within a neighborhood’s system.
As an example, Agripolis opened a rooftop restaurant by area group Le Perchoir. This restaurant’s location has a wonderful herb garden and a beautiful view of Le Marais. Residents and visitors will be able to enjoy food that has traveled only minutes from the vines and trellises to their plates.
Even if a local resident never dines with Agripolis’ restaurant, they can trust that any supporting hotel or eatery will offer great tasting food. After all, food that arrives within hours will always be fresher than food that shows up in a matter of days.
The problem Agripolis solves
When most think about produce shopping, they picture going down to supermarkets and grocery stores to pick up whatever fruits and vegetables are available. This keeps our kitchens stocked with a healthy variety of food, but there are undeniable drawbacks to the current system.
Most of the food that comes to grocery stores travel up to thousands of miles to reach your store shelves. That means hours of time inside of carbon-emitting refrigeration units. With today’s emphasis on greener carbon-neutral solutions, this has to change. Hardy had this to say about the project:
“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.”
Three great benefits to rooftop
Now that Agripolis is bearing enough fruit, we can look at it and similar projects to see why it matters. The following are three huge benefits to Agripolis.
- Enhance the urban landscape to provide fresh food and promote psychological health
- Reduce the carbon footprint and make cities more eco-friendly
- Make healthy naturally grown food cheaper and more readily available
After looking at this, it’s easy to see why the world’s largest rooftop farm is such a tasty project.
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