Today it was announced that Sundrop Farms Pty Ltd and The Sahara Forest Project AS has signed an agreement to establish a long-term close cooperation, and that Sundrop Farms Pty Ltd becomes a Sahara Forest Project AS partner. Full Article

Today it was announced that Sundrop Farms Pty Ltd and The Sahara Forest Project AS has signed an agreement to establish a long-term close cooperation, and that Sundrop Farms Pty Ltd becomes a Sahara Forest Project AS partner.  Full Article

The world-leading seawater desalination greenhouse at Port Augusta will expand to 10 to 20 times its existing size.
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Management at the sustainable greenhouse near Winninowie has announced a major expansion in the next year and new name for the project, “Sundrop Farms”.

Managing Director and cofounder of Seawater Greenhouse Australia Philipp Saumweber announced exclusively to The Transcontinental the project would be made 10 times bigger in the next 10-months.

Mr Saumweber said Sundrop Farms hopes to be “a leader in sustainable desert horticulture”.

Staff at the greenhouse aim to do this by significantly expanding the scale of their operation.

“In the next 10 months or so we’re looking at going from the size we are currently and ‘timesing’ it by 10,” he said.

Head grower at Sundrop Farms, David Pratt, said the greenhouse is only in experimental stages at the moment.

“We’ve taken what we’ve learned from the pilot program and we’re getting to use it to make a more productive greenhouse,” Mr Pratt said.

However the start of the expansion has been delayed, with issues with the initial construction of the greenhouse needing to be fixed.

Mr Saumweber said some of the components installed by subcontractors into the roof were not of the specified quality.

Up to one million kilograms of tomatoes are expected to be produced in the next few years using seawater in a greenhouse in the State’s north.

The newly-named company – Sundrop Farms – plans to expand from 2,000 to 20,000 square metres.

It’s the first commercial scale greenhouse in the world that uses seawater and could lead to growers being less reliant on river water.

Managing director, Phillip Saumweber says the pilot project has been a success and the future looks promising.