Sundrop Farm, a 20-hectare site near Port Augusta in the South Australian desert, is “the first agricultural system of its kind in the world and uses no soil, pesticides, fossil fuels or groundwater,” says New Scientist. The farm runs on solar-generated electricity and desalinates seawater that is piped 5.5 km to the farm, which the news site says “might be the face of farming in the future.”
The commercial-scale greenhouse can produce up to 15,000 tonnes of tomatoes a year; some of them already are being sold in grocery stores. A team of scientists started with a pilot-size greenhouse in 2010 and fine-tuned their design for the full-size greenhouse that officially was launched this month. The seawater sterilizes the air and the tens of thousands of tomato plants grow in coconut husks rather than soil. On a sunny day, the farm’s 23,000 mirrors produce 39 megawatts of electricity. Sundrop Farm cost $200 million to build, but its chief executive says the investment will pay off in the long term from savings on fossil fuels.
Paul Kristiansen, of the University of New England, an Australian college, “questions the need for energy-intensive tomato farming in a desert when there are ideal growing conditions in other parts of Australia,” said New Scientist. However, Kristiansen said the technology could be useful in the future if climate change adversely affects Australia’s cropland.