London – London subsoil has lately become the centre of attention for the numerous innovative projects aiming at putting underground redundant spaces to good use (e.g. bike paths tunnels utilising kinetic energy), or at creating new infrastructures (e.g. the Crossrail).
Perhaps not all of you Londoners know what hides underneath the busy roads of Clapham. Precisely 33 feet under street level, vegetables grow as part of the Growing Underground project started last year, an underground farm using hydroponics and low energy LED lights.
Behind this revolutionary project there are the entrepreneurs Richard Ballard and Steven Dring who had been thinking about the possibility of growing crop vegetables underground for years, and finally leased the space from TfL one year ago, and based their underground farm under Clapham.
As a matter of fact, just 33 feet under Clapham there are huge tunnels built in the 40s as deep air raid shelters which were never converted into an extra run of the Northern Line, as originally planned. These tunnels sat there unused till Ballard and Dring finally obtained the lease for only £1 per square meter, and began building their farm. The idea was to create a farm in a totally controlled environment in order to make it as sustainable as possible by reducing waste and optimising energy consumption. The underground tunnels turned out to be the perfect environment to grow crops as they have a stable temperature of 16°C, which is just about right to grow micro-greens, and they are even spare from pests.
Therefore, neither extra heating energy nor pesticides are used in Ballard and Dring’s underground farm. The farming technique used is called hydroponics, and – as technological as it sounds – it is a soil-free farming technique which was already used in Ancient Greece.
The seeds sit on an inert matrix, and are flooded once or twice a day with nutrient-rich water (in this case collected from the surface rain-water through a special sump), which is then carefully drained away. Above the plants special low energy LED lights are positioned in order to supply the greens with the amount of light they need.
The advantages of growing vegetables underground are apparent: first of all, the totally controlled environment allows for a year-round production, supporting the low food miles, thus leading to a decrease in vegetables import. Hydroponics uses 70% less water than conventional farming, while the energy required to channel water and to light the LED lights is sourced from green providers; furthermore, new options are discussed to bring the footprint down to zero (e.g. derive the energy needed from the heat generated by the Northern Line trains). These are the perfect conditions for a Zero Carbon farm.
The plants farmed underground include a variety of herbs and micro-greens, but the collection will soon expand. For the moment, the herbs farmed underground are: garlic chive, mizuna, radish, pea-shoots, watercress, rocket, red vein sorrel, coriander, micro rocket, red amaranth, Thai basil and mustard leaf. All of them can be delivered to London M25 restaurants in four hours, numbers conventional farming simply cannot achieve in a city like London.
As a matter of fact, freshness is Growing Underground trade mark. And taste is just as good as that of conventionally grown crops, says television chef Michel Roux Jr, who has joined the company as a director.
Growing Underground is not a fancy ruse, but it inserts itself into a global trend of environmental awareness which is leading to infrastructural and commercial projects aimed at transforming the production cycle.
Good resources management, energy efficiency and reduction of waste materials have become the main concerns in production, urban planning and construction, and the results of this eco-sustainable turn can be seen in the innovations in farming techniques as well.
Growing Underground combines the necessity of eco-sustainable farming with the importance of re-discovering a taste for natural and fresh food, in a city which too often has no time to care. Through the use of new technologies, urban growing will not only contribute to a better environment, but it will hopefully also stir Londoners’ sense of nature and well-being.
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