{"id":2008,"date":"2011-08-03T19:01:13","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T23:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=2008"},"modified":"2011-08-03T19:03:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T23:03:50","slug":"hydroponic-city-farms-close-fresh-and-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=2008","title":{"rendered":"Hydroponic City Farms: Close, Fresh and Expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Glen Collings, NEW YORK TIMES, August 1, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a> MICHAEL ANTHONY admires the butter lettuce he has been buying for the last month so much that he invented a salad for it. The $12 dish he serves at Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan is also made up of pickled eggplant, ricotta, pickled cherries and heirloom tomatoes, but the greens are the star, and for good reason.<\/p>\n

Often picked only several hours before arriving at his kitchen, four miles from the farm, the lettuce could not be more fresh, or local. It has just about all a demanding chef could ask, except one thing: dirt clinging to its roots.<\/p>\n

The butter lettuce is grown at Gotham Greens<\/a>, a new hydroponic garden in industrial Greenpoint that turns romantic notions of farming on their head. In a $2 million greenhouse, baby plants emerge from seeds embedded in tiny sponges made of fibers spun from volcanic basalt.<\/p>\n

Water? It\u2019s recycled so only 700 gallons are used per day, a 10th of that used in conventional farming. Soil? That\u2019s replaced by thin films of nutrient-rich water sluicing down hundreds of plastic channels cradling the roots of salad greens, lettuces and culinary herbs.<\/p>\n

The sleek garden that has improbably touched down on the roof of a huge two-story former bowling alley and light-manufacturing space is one of the largest commercial-scale hydroponic greenhouses in urban America providing pristine, sustainable produce for restaurants and high-end retailers.<\/p>\n

Until recently, there have been two associations with hydroponics: 1. Marijuana, 2. No flavor. But state-of-the-art operations have won converts among chefs who venerate local produce and celebrate terroir. \u201cThis volume, and this level of expertise: this is something we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Mr. Anthony said of Gotham Greens produce. \u201cThey\u2019ve taken it to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, hydroponic produce \u201cdoesn\u2019t replace field-grown vegetables\u201d in Gramercy Tavern\u2019s kitchen, he said. For now, \u201cit may be working in a supporting role.\u201d And though the supply of products is year-round, and theoretically could subvert chefs\u2019 increasing seasonal obsession, \u201cit doesn\u2019t really challenge our notion of seasonality,\u201d Mr. Anthony added.<\/p>\n

Yet to Andr\u00e9 de Waal, the chef and an owner of the haute Andr\u00e9\u2019s Restaurant in Newton, N.J., \u201cit\u2019s all a tradeoff.\u201d He has been buying hydroponic veggies for a year from a small rural greenhouse 15 minutes away, and says that vegetables from California are more than three days old by the time they reach him.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the choice between days-old produce grown in soil, and super-fresh hydroponic vegetables, I\u2019d rather have the hydroponic,\u201d Mr. de Waal said. \u201cThere is nothing quite like working with produce that is several hours old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advocates for urban greenhouse produce have long touted the benefits of proximity, freshness, quality and job creation. \u201cFor certain crops, hydroponics can be a boon,\u201d said John Magazino, president of Primizie Fine Foods in the Bronx, an upscale produce supplier that has sold hydroponic crops from nonurban suppliers to restaurants including Eleven Madison Park and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. \u201cLettuces, chicories, endives and all the fresh herbs do extremely well. And if Gotham Greens can grow chervil, which isn\u2019t easy to grow and doesn\u2019t transport well, they will make a lot of New York chefs happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone agrees. [Read rest of story]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hydroponics — growing food in water instead of earth — is well-suited for urban farming. The newly picked and high-quality vegetables produced are mostly charming locavores who have the money to pay for it. But the possibilities for the future are large.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17,69],"tags":[1294,1295,1299,1296,1298,1300,1297],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2008"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2010,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions\/2010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}