Brazil: Project bets on alternative food production in urban centers

Adapted laboratories with controlled temperature, lighting, and nutrients are bets from companies and researchers in large urban centers, such as São Paulo, to offer quality food in sustainable projects. The idea is seen as an alternative for what may be the production of the future.

Lettuce, purple lettuce, and various types of sprouts, such as radish, leek, and cabbage, are among the items planted in the shed where the largest urban vertical farm in Latin America is located. The project of a "high tech" vegetable garden was developed by three engineer friends four years ago at Pink Farm. While researching technologies, they discovered cultivation in a controlled environment.

"Our goal is to be closer to the consumer, producing just a few kilometers away from the place of consumption. Since we can always reproduce the same conditions, the plant always has the quality we expect," says partner Mateus Delalibera.

Currently, the production capacity is three tons per month, sold in 80 retail outlets in the city, including restaurants, grocery stores, and supermarkets.

An urban coffee plantation cultivated since the 1950's right in the middle of São Paulo has 10 thousand square meters of plantation, with approximately 2 thousand Arabica coffee trees. The objective is to improve scientific research in the area, to develop planting techniques, and to collaborate in fighting pests.

The challenge now is to be able to offer other varieties of beans that produce more and are even more resistant. There are only two varieties of coffee there at the moment - Mundo Novo and Catuai. We are going to plant about four more varieties of coffee so that we can make all our research available and demonstrate, under the same conditions, how to plant different varieties so that people can come and see how the same varieties behave in relation to this," says agricultural engineer Hamuri Hojo, who is technically responsible for the coffee plantation.

Read the complete article at www.cnnbrasil.com.br.