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from the hydroponics-not-just-for-growing-ganja dept.
The landscape is virtually treeless around a coastal hub town above Alaska's Arctic Circle, where even summer temperatures are too cold for northern-growing forests to take root.
Amid these unforgiving conditions, a creative kind of farming is sprouting up in the largely Inupiat community of Kotzebue.
A subsidiary of a local Native corporation is using hydroponics technology to grow produce inside an insulated, 40-foot shipping container equipped with glowing magenta LED lights. Arctic Greens is harvesting kale, various lettuces, basil and other greens weekly from the soil-free system and selling them at the supermarket in the community of nearly 3,300.
"We're learning," Will Anderson, president of the Native Kikiktagruk Inupiat Corp., said of the business launched last spring. "We're not a farming culture."
The venture is first of its kind north of the Arctic Circle, according to the manufacturer of Kotzebue's pesticide-free system. The goal is to set up similar systems in partnerships with other rural communities far from Alaska's minimal road system—where steeply priced vegetables can be more than a week in transit and past their prime by the time they arrive at local stores.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by moondoctor on Friday November 04 2016, @11:11PM
In case you're not trolling. That's where those people have lived thousands of years. Why should they leave because you don't get it? They lived there utilising resources in an amazingly efficient manner that whole time. We can probably learn from them.
Produce in the winter is a recent thing, and getting that fresh is amazing. If it uses less energy overall to just grow it up there and the produce is better, how is this a bad thing? Sounds like real and good progress for technology and society.
[Also, if you don't get why wilderness is important for a healthy society check out Bob Marshall. Proper American hero]