CANBERRA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers are pioneering a world-first greenhouse that can grow food without fresh water.
The team from Adelaide-based company Sundrop Farms has spent years developing the project at its first site, 300 kilometers north of the South Australian (SA) capital at Port Augusta.
The 20-hectare futuristic site relies on salt water and solar power, harnessed by 23,000 mirrors directing sunlight at a central receiver, to function.
"This is a very special project," Head grower Adrian Simkins told the ABC on Saturday.
"It's not just a first for Port Augusta, this is a first in the world."
At its peak the site produces 39 megawatts of thermal energy, which is used for electricity and to power a thermal desalination unit used to turn the salt water into fresh water.
"It's almost the perfect water," Simkins said.
"You're taking all the salt out of it, there's no disease aspects, it's very pure and then we're able to enhance it with the nutrition that the plants require."
Leading the project are Phillipp Saumweber, a former investment banker, and Dutch engineer Reiner Wolterbeek who said the project offered great hope for growing crops in unfriendly climates.
"You need to think about what you have and not so much what you don't have," Wolterbeek said.
"Not a lot of people thought you could grow vegetables in the desert, but I think you can."
"If you think smart about I there is a solution."
The 153 million U.S. dollar facility will provide at least 15,000 tons of truss tomatoes every year to one of Australia's largest supermarkets, Coles, for the next 10 years.
"Tomatoes are one of our top-10 selling lines in the supermarket and they're growing very quickly," Brad Gorman, Coles head of fresh produce, told the ABC on Saturday in response to suggestions that the deal with Sundrop could saturate the tomato market.
"Particularly in winter, there is a gap between supply and demand and what Sundrop will do is fill that gap."
Sundrop has three more facilities planned at the moment, one each in the United States and Portugal, and one more in Australia.
