“It doesn’t matter because it’s great to see more urban agriculture coming online. In Quebec, people have a lot of pride for the province and want to support Quebec businesses.” This also means that Lufa Farms is not the only urban farm in town. There are two huge markets, and there are a lot of independent restaurants. This shows that the market in Montreal is very receptive to Lufa Farms’ offering. On top of all of that, Lufa Farms has also recently completed another greenhouse, making it 5 under the company’s belt. For that, we needed to control the HVAC, water circulation, heating, lighting, etc.” “We wanted to try a farming endeavor where we could control the environment quickly. We didn’t go for vertical cultivation because the ceiling is quite low, so we decided to do single-level farming for veggies that fit in one’s hand.” Lufa Farms saw that approach working in the greenhouse, but they had to tweak a few things to make it work in a fully indoor environment. “We built it into an old, big unused warehouse. Lufa Farms has also recently opened an indoor farm. It doesn’t have to be about greenhouses only, though. We knew we had to improve our technology, make things more efficient, and so on.” To keep being profitable, we needed to grow in a bigger greenhouse. We had to keep developing and innovating, as we couldn’t replicate the same greenhouse of the same size. “The second greenhouse we built was of commercial scale. After all, you can grow year-round with a greenhouse. “Our first greenhouse wasn’t necessarily super big, but it served to show that there’s interest in the types of products we grow.” This also has to do with the general attitude of Montreal City, which is very much engaged in the conversation around sustainability. “You’d need a huge greenhouse to be profitable growing small veggies,” Callie continues. While amusing and mildly entertaining for the public, Lufa Farms has endured (and still is enduring) quite a few challenges. Since it was a successful experiment, we continued to do that.” It’s certainly a sight to behold for Montreal dwellers, as just looking at the top of a building would reveal where your lettuce is coming from. In the city, you would see countless big, flat roofs, so we decided to go for that with initial proof of concept. Here in Montreal, there are a lot of big industrial roofs that are completely unused. “Our mission is to create a better food system where we can grow food close to where people live.

However, there’s one question that lingers: why rooftops? “There are a couple of reasons,” says Callie. “What started as a simple premade veggie basket service turned into a full-fledged online farmers’ market,” Callie remarks. The company serves the greater Montreal area, but it also has an online marketplace where it sells more than two thousand different products coming from food producers around the area. Additionally, we have a fifth one coming online.” “We have five greenhouses so far,” says Callie Giaccone from Lufa Farms. Their specialty? ‘Occupying’ rooftops with greenhouses. Lufa Farms is an urban agriculture company out of Montreal.

Production hub indeed