Sydney's underground car-park farm paves way to sustainable agriculture
In the heart of Sydney's central business district, Noah Verin rides through the streets to a dark corner of an underground car park that houses his farm, Urban Green.
Verin, a former chef turned farmer, started the microgreens and herb business in early 2020 just before the coronavirus pandemic with around 40 different species growing side by side under lights and fans for ventilation.
"I always knew that when people heard the story, of the fact that there's a farm in a basement in Barangaroo growing food, that that would like strike people," Verin, who also holds an environmental science degree, told Reuters from the car park farm.
Verin aims to have Urban Green carbon neutral by 2026, with a four-prong approach including energy use, growing medium, packaging and deliveries.
Using LED lights that have already halved in efficiency since the business started and a coconut coir growing medium for the plants, it's the packaging and deliveries that Verin is most proud of.
Although most deliveries are done in a van, some deliveries are made on a bike with an attached specifically built trailer with Verin wanting to use ebikes with the trailers to make deliveries in the future.
At one of Verin's clients, Sydney restaurant Botswana Butchery in Martin Place, head chef Logan Campbell appreciates many aspects of the Urban Green business.
"Noah's product comes in still alive, still in its pot and also he doesn't use a lot of plastics or any throwaway products like that so it's all very sustainable which I like," Campbell told Reuters from the restaurant kitchen.
As he snipped Urban Green's nasturtium leaves to add the finishing touch to a dish, Campbell added that 10 years ago he would not have believed he would be buying his greens from a car park farm but today it's different.
With the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, to be held from November 6 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Verin says that while vertical farms have been seen as a potential answer to the food crisis, now the conversation has shifted to how those same farms can also be sustainable.
"I think the more that happens and the more investment gets put into ethical businesses, ones that are really trying to do the right thing then it will become a much more potent solution. We are definitely on the way," Verin added.
Verin aims to one-day open car park farms for products such as chili's and strawberries and more car park micro green and herb farms, changing people's perceptions of farming – one microgreen at a time.
Reuters
