Fruits and vegetables in greenhouses under water – that sounds like something out of a fantastic novel by Jules Verne.
In 2012 Sergio Gamberini had the unusual idea of growing basil underwater off the Ligurian coast. The enthusiastic diver and President of the Ocean Reef Group came up with the idea of an “underwater farm” in a conversation with a farmer friend.
Today the crazy idea of the entrepreneur is attracting worldwide attention, because in the long term the climate crisis will require the exploration of alternative cultivation methods in agriculture. With the “Nemo’s Garden” project, terrestrial plants are cultivated underwater for the first time.
The underwater farm consists of 6 air-filled transparent acrylic capsules, so-called biosphere, which are anchored to the sea floor. The large hemispheres float at a depth of 4.5 to 10 meters directly on the coast of Noli, Italy. The sea offers ideal temperatures for plant growth. Each biosphere can accommodate 80 to 100 small plants. A nutrient solution replaces the necessary soil in the system.
In addition to herbs such as oregano and marjoram, lettuce and strawberries are already successfully grown – even orchids are grown here. One advantage of underwater cultivation: since there are no pests, there is no use of pesticides. Good conditions for organic production.
The Nemo’s Garden project has found partners from business and also cooperates with the universities of Genoa and Pisa. The operating parent company “Ocean Reef Group” explains: if the problems with size, logistics and profitability are solved, this could “be a solution to the scarcity of cultivated land and other central problems of conventional agriculture.”
–
