Earlier this week Al Jazeera published an interesting story about a new facility in southern Australia that grows 15 percent of the entire production of tomatoes in that country without using soil, fresh water and fossil fuels. According to the story, Sundrop Farms explained its sustainable growing methods this way: “Tomatoes are grown hydroponically in coconut coir, eliminating the need for soil.
“Our concentrated solar tower produces both heat and electricity to maintain the perfect conditions inside the greenhouses to help the plants grow. This heat is also used to de-salinate one million litres of seawater a day; the fresh water produced is used to water the plants and cool the greenhouses.”
Later in the story it was pointed out that many fundamental staple foods would not be cost-effective to be grown this way compared to conventional farming, but for specialty crops it may be something for farmers of the future to consider.
