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No sunshine, no problem with Urban Barns

November 19, 2012  By Dave Harrison


Nov. 19, 2012, Montreal — Urban Farms has announced the first
sustainable commercial growing facility in the world utilizing Cubic
Farming© growing practices.

Nov. 19, 2012, Montreal — Urban Farms has announced the first sustainable commercial growing facility in the world utilizing Cubic Farming© growing practices.

“By introducing manufacturing production line concepts into farming for the first time in history, Urban Barns has introduced a next generation agriculture called Cubic Farming that can increase yields to economically achieve commercial volumes of food grown locally,” says Urban Barns chairman Dan Meikleham.

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The concept is similar to a greenhouse but can utilize the entire cubic space in a building, not just the flat surface used in field farming or greenhouse growing.

“Tests have been performed in our Langley facility giving significant yields per acre naturally and without the need to use genetically modified plants (GMO). Our British Columbia location has started to grow Boston butter lettuce and plans to add spring mix, spinach, basil, cilantro and various herbs.”

Richard Groome, president and director of strategic marketing, adds that according to the USDA, a regular farm can produce approximately 92,000 heads of lettuce per crop per acre, which would entail two to three crops per year, or, 184,000 to 276,000 heads per year.

“With Urban Barns’ patent pending Cubic Farming growing methods,” says Groome, “we can place up to 436 machines on one acre of land stacked three high and produce 6.3 million heads of lettuce per acre from 10 crops per year.

"Our unique growing techniques produce vegetables with vastly lower water consumption as compared with field farming, and by growing indoors we eliminate the use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Our produce can be locally deployed to reduce “miles to market” delivering fresh, nutrient-rich produce all while lowering consumers carbon footprint.”

Following the launch of the first Cubic Farming facility in Canada, “we are in discussions with several governments and potential partners around the world to deploy our Cubic Farming technology in countries that have serious water and/or soil contamination issues, such as China and southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Caribbean.”

Click on the following video links for more information:

Video One

Video Two

Video Three


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