Fresh veg on top of Israel's oldest shopping mall

According to estimates by the United Nations, by 2050, 66 percent of the world population will be living in cities. Providing these urban residents with fresh and local vegetables won’t be so easy. Because in large cities it is not possible to have large fields available to grow fresh vegetables. A solution for this problem is the so-called 'urban gardening'. This will involve taking advantage of available open spaces to be used with special growing methods that will provide a durable and highly efficient type of vegetable growing. The rooftop of a shopping center in Israel’s Tel Aviv that is now being used to cultivate local produce this way, reports the website trendsderzukunft.de.

Harvest twice as large as conventional cultivation

The project was developed and realized by the LivinGreen company in collaboration with the Dizengoff Shopping Centre. The plants are not planted in soil, but grown hydroponically. In this way, not only is there a weight reduction of the roof farm, but water usage is decreased as well. At the same time harvest is about double when compared with conventional cultivation methods. In the case of this Israeli roof farm this means: on 750 square meters about 10,000 plants can be harvested each month and this can continue throughout the entire year.

Production without carbon emissions
The locally grown vegetables are in part sold directly at the downstairs Shopping Centre. Shops and restaurants also can order fresh vegetables that are delivered by bike messenger. In this way, even the delivery of the produce doesn’t even cause any carbon emissions. In addition, there are public meetings being held at the roof farm where the concept of urban gardening is made known to the public. LivinGreen has developed a system that allows anyone to grow produce with hydroponics at home.