Green growth focus of hydroponic gathering

In a town where fresh produce is hard to come by, Rick Barentsen has a line on some lettuce.

Barentsen is part of an initiative at an education centre in Leaf Rapids that grows 60 heads of fresh leafy greens each week, year-round, using indoor hydroponic growing systems.

The veggies are distributed to many of the northwestern Manitoba town’s 300 residents. It’s a boon to a community where Barentsen said the local grocery store has not carried fresh produce for the last six months.

“Being the only food grower in the community, it makes a big difference for the 90 families that we have,” he said. “We harvest it, we wrap it in plastic food bags (and) we hand it out the same day.”

Barentsen is a gardening co-ordinator at the initiative, known as Grow North, which is delivered through the Leaf Rapids Education Centre. Grow North uses a multi-unit growing system designed by Winnipeg-based company Les Verts Living.

Barentsen and his colleagues decided to start growing their own food when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the food supply chain. That’s paying off now that the nearest grocery store that sells vegetables is 200 kilometres away.

“It is tasty, it is clean — the people love it,” he said.

The expat Dutchman told his story Thursday at an event at Les Vert Living’s headquarters in the South Landing Business Park in Winnipeg.

Organized by the company’s eight employees, the event brought together rural and northern Manitobans, educators and businesspeople to share ideas about how to make community-based food production possible at a time when access to fresh food remains a challenge for many across Canada.

“We’re really trying to show people what food production at the community scale can look like,” said Victoria Leung, managing director at Les Verts Living.

That connects to the company’s mission to empower people everywhere to grow fresh, quality food.

Founded in 2018 by Rachel Green, Kerry Green and Jennifer Bailes, Les Verts Living offers three hydroponic growing systems that range in price from $2,250 to $5,450.

The company advertises them as the ideal solution for any individual or organization wanting to grow fresh produce to feed their communities while providing a fun and educational activity for all ages. They market the systems to home growers, schools, senior care facilities, remote communities, market gardeners and social entrepreneurs, offices and workplaces, and restaurants, resorts and hotels.

She declined to share Les Verts Living’s annual revenue and the number of units sold to date, but she did say the company has customers across Canada.

Les Verts Living’s growing system can produce 6,200 servings of fresh food annually, while using 90 per cent less water than conventional agriculture, Leung said. Once the system is set up, it takes about two hours of labour per week. No experience is needed.

“You can install the system, start planting — two months later, you’ve got your first harvest and now you’re growing all the time,” Leung said.

In addition to its headquarters in Manitoba, Les Verts Living has an office in Vancouver. The Terrace Pro units are manufactured in nearby Abbotsford, B.C.

aaron.epp@winnipegfreepress.com