I meant to do a post about this last week, but forgot, so here it is now for all of you who missed it on the news...Thanet Earth is a massive, salad growing greenhouse facility covering the same area as 39 football pitches, placed, quite aptly in our Garden of England - Kent. The project cost a whopping £80m (that's a lot of lettuces) and it is hoped that the facility will produce around 15% of our UK grown salad produce. It boasts that the greenhouses generate their own power, but the report I saw was a little woolly around the edges with the actual hard facts, and the glasshouses even have their own bees...
So - is this a step in the right direction? I am torn with this one.
Why do you ask? Well on my plus side, it is UK grown, so limiting food miles, is producing jobs in a time of uncertainty and may be quite energy efficient (I would have to look into this one further though, with some good old hard maths...)
On my downside though, it is VERY large, thus taking up large swathes of land that could spell a dispersion of native species, all the crops still have to be delivered to packing plants and driven across the country (even if they are destined for the supermarket down the road), and there is little mentioned about pesticides (a little snippet about 'good insects' but no hard facts again...). I am also very dubious about putting all my eggs in one basket and if this facility will account for 15% of our UK grown produce, what happens to all the little people who were supplying the larger people? With big industry, comes big power, and sometimes lower unit costs due to economies of scale. Will the smaller joes have to decrease their unit prices to stay competitive?
So, this is a toughie. Yes better UK grown than not, but is this the answer? Is it big AND clever? And if not, there is a good bit of greenwashing going on with that name...
I think I'll stick to growing my own and sticking to the seasons thank you. I've never wanted a fresh tomato with my Christmas dinner, and I doubt I ever will. For some this is the answer, but sorry, not for me.
I'm so glad you posted this Claire. I made extensive scribbled notes whilst watching the news last week, then threw them out with the recycling on Saturday! Ironic or what?
ReplyDeleteI've got an ongoing correspondence with Sainsbury's and the company up in Middlesborough that's growing tomatoes up there. As you say it looks good food miles wise, but what about the energy used for heating and lighting at this time of the year? The Middlesborough outfit are using waste emissions from ICI for the heating part, but I haven't got the answers yet for lighting...