Canada: Urban Barns seeks to expand Cubic Farming concept

Canadian grower Urban Barns Foods Canada Inc., located just outside of Montreal, Quebec believes to have achieved the highest-density mechanised machine in indoor controlled environment agriculture; the Urban Barns Cubic FarmingTM system. Their production system works with movable gutters in a rotating setting. The biggest advantage of this is that production with the Cubic Farming TM model requires less labour and that the carbon footprint per head of lettuce is very small.

The idea of Urban Barns was born at commercial vegetable young plant propagator Bevo Farms in Langley, B.C., when owner Jack Benne came up with the idea to grow food inside a closed environment without daylight. The grower set up a shop inside his greenhouse operation with the plan to design a revolutionary system. Together with his son Leo, Jack Benne designed a unit to grow in a “Cubic FarmingTM” setting and eventually transferred the concept in March 2014 to Montreal with the objective of proving the concept in a commercial market setting.

Nowadays Urban Barns leases a warehouse just north of Montreal (QC) where they operate 13 Cubic FarmingTM units. "We use this patent pending equipment to produce premium leafy greens in a secure and controlled indoor environment", said

Urban Barns' director Robyn Jackson. Every hour, the crop makes one rotation within the unit. During this revolution, the crop passes a section with LEDs and it gets irrigated automatically. When the crops are ready to be harvested, the closed-loop conveyer system carries the head of lettuce to the worker, allowing for an effort-less harvest that saves a substantial amount of labour compared to regular cultivation on hydroponic gutters or Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) systems.

Urban Barns currently produces several varieties of lettuce (romaine, butterhead…etc.), basil and microgreens. They propagate their own starting plants in a separate germination room, after ten days the seedlings are transplanted onto the Generation 3 production units and after 28 days of rotation the plants are ready to be shipped to their customers in the greater Montreal area, the greater Toronto area and the island of Manhattan."

By virtue of their patent-pending growing technology, Urban Barns has been awarded MK Kosher Certification. This highly sought after certificate is a testament to the pristine quality of produce the company grows.

To date Urban Barns provides the Jewish community of Montreal and Toronto with fresh leafy greens that do not require lengthy preparation prior to consumption. As demand for its produce grows, the company is seeking to expand their production by implementing their next generation Cubic Farm, with enhanced automation as well as production capacity per square foot of growing space.

If you would like to have more information on Urban Barns, please visit www.urbanbarns.com