By Liz Clark, London Press Service

Highly demand for salad vegetables all-year round has led to the creation of a massive greenhouse development in Kent in the UK.

Seven high-tech greenhouses - each one covering land equivalent to about 10 football pitches - are being constructed at a cost of 80 million pounds on a 91-hectare site in the county of Kent, Thanet, in southern England.

The project is a joint venture between the UK’s biggest fresh produce supplier, the Fresca Group, and three major specialist Netherlands companies. They are Rainbow Growers (peppers), A&A (cucumbers) and Red Star Trading (tomatoes) that had watched the consumer trend, seen the value of the UK market and initiated the scheme.

The aim of the venture is to produce home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers all-year round and the project has been given the name Thanet Earth that the developers hope will reflect its “Planet Earth” green credentials.

Up to now, the increased call for salads in and out of season has been met by transporting produce from other countries in Europe or further still. The Thanet Earth plan will help to reduce the “food miles” required to meet the demand, says Fresca. It will also mean much greater freshness because the interval between picking tomatoes and other crops and their arrival in the shops will be much shorter.

Each of the computer-controlled 140-metre-long greenhouses is equipped with environmentally approved combined heat and power units instead of conventional boilers, and these will have several benefits, such as providing electricity.

Reducing energy use and resulting carbon emissions are, indeed, part of the UK government’s long-term plans.

Insects are expected to play their part in the scheme.Worker bees are going to be released into the greenhouses to pollinate the plants, and natural predators such as wasps will be used to deal with pests.
Advanced hydroponic techniques are to be used to grow the plants that will eventually number more than a million when each super-size greenhouse is fully operational.

Hydroponic growing techniques are relatively common in various countries including the Netherlands but, said a Fresca spokesman, they have not been tried on such a massive scale in the UK before.

Thanet Earth is expected to be fully functional by 2010.

Planting will start in September and by October the first produce will be start to appear on supermarket shelves.

Web: www.thanetearth.com

Caption: Greenhouse growth: how one of the seven gigantic glass houses being built on a vast site in southern England will look. The project is a joint venture between a UK company and three specialist salad vegetables firms from the Netherlands to provide tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers all-year round to meet demand. The green scheme includes a range of environmental features including use of combined heat and power.