[R-G] Farmers Put 220 Acres Under Glass to Create Vast Artificial Environment

[Anthony Fenton]

Welcome to Thanet Earth: is this a taste of future for UK agriculture?

Cucumbers and peppers for eight months, tomatoes all year round in  
seven giant Kent glasshouses

     * Esther Addley
     * The Guardian,
     * Wednesday June 11 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/11/greenbuilding.food/print

Inside a Thanet Earth greenhouse at Birchington, Kent. The lighting  
will be so bright that workers will have to wear sunglasses

Inside a Thanet Earth greenhouse at Birchington, Kent. The lighting  
will be so bright that workers will have to wear sunglasses.  
Photograph: Henry Browne

 From the A299 Thanet Way there is not a great deal to be seen - just  
some low white structures on the brow of the hill, and a discreet  
little sign. But that is because fewer than 15 of the 80 football  
pitches' worth of greenhouse have so far been constructed. Once this  
development is fully operational it will be rather harder to ignore.

The low hill on the Isle of Thanet in Kent will be home to 1.3 million  
plants, growing in seven greenhouses, each up to 140m in length and  
fed by its own reservoir.

Seven power generating stations on site will heat the glasshouses, and  
generate, as a byproduct, enough electricity to supply half of Thanet,  
an area in north-east Kent incorporating the towns of Margate,  
Ramsgate and Broadstairs.

The crops themselves will be suspended from the 8m ceiling in huge  
hydroponic rows, their roots never touching the chalky Kent soil  
beneath.

This is Thanet Earth, Britain's biggest greenhouse development, which  
will increase by 15% the UK's crop of salad vegetables. Cucumbers and  
peppers will be picked continuously from February to October, tomatoes  
harvested every day of the week, 52 weeks a year.

Link to this audio
Esther Addley visits Thanet Earth

This kind of industrial agriculture is relatively common in the  
Netherlands and elsewhere but has never been attempted on this scale  
in the UK. But with British consumers increasingly demanding British  
salad vegetables, all year round, a consortium of Dutch growers  
approached Fresca, the UK's largest fresh produce supplier, with a  
plan to develop a site in Britain. Thanet Earth was born. "We wanted  
Planet Thanet but in hindsight it's a bit lacking in sophistication,"  
said Steve McVicars, the site's MD.

The advantages of the model to growers are self-evident. The  
vegetables' growing season is hugely extended in a sheltered climate  
of perpetual summer, with every nutritional need attended to and  
artificial lighting for part of the night.

Growing hydroponically, in nutrient-enriched water rather than soil,  
allows the suspension of the crops at waist height rather than ground  
level, for ease of picking. "Financially, commercially, in terms of  
sustainability and [ease of] growing, this has become more and more  
the model," said McVicars. Not every rural community would welcome the  
glazing over of 92 hectares (220 acres) of prime farmland, but for the  
local council at least, the prospect of 550 new jobs has sweetened the  
pill.

Roger Latchford, deputy leader of Thanet district council, describes  
the development as "eye-popping" in scale. "It's absolutely awesome,  
and very significant. In deprived areas the creation of 500 jobs is a  
major success story." He hopes the comparatively pleasant working  
conditions, in a heated greenhouse so bright workers will have to wear  
sunglasses, will attract locals, though others have suggested that the  
jobs may go overwhelmingly to migrant labour, with little impact on  
local employment rates.

Alastair Bruce, an environmental and geological consultant who also  
represents south Birchington on the council, agrees that the positive  
aspects of the development, which will be complete in August 2010,  
could outweigh the environmental impact. "Had I had a way of  
influencing where it was sited, I wouldn't necessarily have chosen  
where it is. It's on high land, and we've taken out a fair acreage of  
good quality agricultural land. Having said that, it's a unique  
venture in the UK, I'm extremely pleased to have it here in Thanet,  
and even more pleased to have it called Thanet Earth." While some  
locals had early suspicions, he notes, the project has not attracted  
significant levels of opposition at any stage.

It's a familiar theme, too, in the village. "If it leads to the  
destruction of more hedgerows to make way for the greenhouses then I  
wouldn't be too happy about it, but if it's providing lots of jobs for  
local people then I can't see that is a bad thing," says Taffina  
Jenkins, behind the till in a newsagents in Birchington.

The site's developers say they have taken steps to ensure the  
environmental impact, considering the scale of the operation, will be  
minimised. The huge reservoirs, which will capture rainwater and  
recycle the water in which the crops grow, will allow the site to be  
self-sufficient from May to September, draining nothing from the local  
utilities. The 32MW generated by the combined heat and power system,  
uploaded to the National Grid, will offset significant costs from the  
site, while some of the CO2 produced by the burning gas will used to  
enrich the glasshouse atmosphere. Even the night-time lighting of the  
tomatoes will have minimal visual impact, said McVicars, with shades  
on the sides and roof keeping 95% of the light inside.

"We need to let the plants have a natural sleep, so we like to put  
them to bed in the afternoon naturally, then we just wake them up  
early, at around midnight." At night the site will appear no brighter  
than a street-lit road, he said.

Despite its claimed advantages, McVicars argued that the Thanet Earth  
model was unlikely to be widely replicated across Britain. "We don't  
believe you can go north of the Thames in terms of winter light. We've  
got 17% more light down here than you would have towards the Midlands,  
and that is really crucial."

But it's also about finding sites big enough to make industrialised  
farming on this scale practical, and large tracts of land, with the  
necessary gas, electricity and transport connections are not abundant  
in sunny, southern England.

Having broken the seasonality of salad vegetable production in  
Britain, McVicars believes that clear regional branding is the way  
forward, and he hopes the site's produce will be clearly marked with  
their provenance. The first Thanet Earth products will appear on  
supermarket shelves from October.