Fresh from the roof

An innovative company called “Frisch vom Dach” (Fresh from the Roof) aims to revolutionise the way city dwellers think of and consume their food by building the world’s largest rooftop farm in the world on top of an old malt factory in Berlin.

There is nothing new about the idea of growing vegetables in cities – from London to New York, Melbourne to Delhi there are hundreds of individuals, communities, organisations and municipalities involved in transforming small urban areas into productive farms. However Frisch vom Datch wants to take urban farming to a completely new level.

At present Nicholas Leschke, Karoline vom Bockel and Christian Echternacht, the three entrepreneurs who came up with the idea, only have a small farm inside a container as a prototype but their idea is to build an aquaponic farm the size of a football field (7 thousand square metres) which will include 4 thousand square metre rooftop vegetable farm and a 3 thousand square metre fish farm which will use tanks once used to soak barley. Aquaponic farms produce food by combining traditional aquaculture with hydroponics, hence the term “aqua – ponic”; in very basic terms they create a system whereby the toxic by-products of fish farming serve as nutrients for the plants which in turn serve to cleanse the water for the fish.

Frisch vom Dach is currently looking for investors – they need a total of 2 million euros to launch build the infrastructure and start growing – but hopes to start planting by the end of 2013.

For more information: www.frischvomdach.de