The biggest greenhouse in Britain unveiled
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You’ve heard of the factory chicken. Now meet the factory vegetable. Grown in their millions in trays of nutrient-enriched water inside a heated, artificially-lit greenhouse large enough to house ten football pitches, they are as far as you can get from ‘natural’ home-grown food.
But this week, workers are putting the finishing touches to Britain’s largest hydroponic greenhouse - an astonishing construction in white steel and glass.
By the time the site is complete in 2010, another six massive greenhouses will have been constructed, providing a home to more than 1.3million tomato, pepper and cucumber plants - grown hydroponically, without soil.
Kent is often called the Garden of England. When this village of glass is complete, it will be more like England’s factory.
At a time when people are increasingly concerned about industrial-scale farming, this latest, monumental step in the steady, insidious creep of factory farming is a controversial one.
Fresca, the company building the complex on the Isle of Thanet with a consortium of Dutch growers, argues that the new site - called Thanet Earth - will help meet the demand for homegrown food all year round.
But real food campaigners say nothing can replace the taste of vegetables and fruit grown outside in proper soil. Read the rest of this entry »