The facility that will produce leafy greens year-round for Calgarians, even in the cold dead of winter, officially opened Tuesday. Located deep in Calgary's industrial southeast next door to Amazon's gargantuan sprawling warehouses, GoodLeaf Farms opened what's being called the largest vertical farm in Canada at 96,000 square feet.
It marked the conclusion of construction on the massive $52-million facility. The Alberta government in 2021 chipped in $2.7 million through the Alberta Investment Growth Fund (IGF). GoodLeaf CEO and founder Barry Murchie said that while construction has finished, the company is expecting to double facility capacity "in the not-too-distant future."
"It's extraordinary the amount of effort that goes into building a farm that no one has done before," Murchie said. Premier Danielle Smith stopped in for a brief moment to meet with GoodLeaf executives and try the company's lemonade infused with radish microgreens, leaving before the press conference started. Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation RJ Sigurdson and Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade Matt Jones also made a handful of remarks.
GoodLeaf's facility is a major step for food sovereignty in Alberta, Murchie said, as concerns over water needs in areas of the U.S. have made vertical farms key facilities for regions' food supply. Canada gets the majority of its leafy greens from California and Arizona.
Source: msn.com