Is VF winter’s answer to the high cost of imported produce?

Added on 23 January 2024

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Is VF winter’s answer to the high cost of imported produce?

Vertical farms like Welland, Ont.-based Vision Greens require less land or water than open air farms and use low-energy, artificially lit warehouses to produce non-pesticide leafy green vegetables. Courtesy of VISION GREENS

Vision Greens, a vertical farm in Welland, Ont., believes it has a solution to the high cost of green vegetables in winter-bound Canada – grow up.

Vertical farming proponents say these farms can supply greens all year to Canadians at prices that compete favourably with foreign-grown products, helping to keep grocery costs stable and making the country less reliant on imported food.

At a time when agricultural property prices have risen more than 20 per cent since 2022 and Ontario alone is reported to be losing some 319 acres of farmland every day to development and sprawl, vertical farms don’t need much land or water, using low-energy, artificially lit warehouses to produce non-pesticide leafy green vegetables.

“Our current 4,000-square-feet growing footprint produces an amount of food equal to what you could grow on 12 and a half acres,” says Lenny Louis, chief executive officer of Vision Greens.

“We built one vertical farm module to see if we could get price parity with produce trucked in from California, and we feel we’re there. So now we’re in the market trying to raise funds to expand to four times our current size,” he says.