Growing Food, Growing Cities: Lufa Farms’ Vision for Urban Agriculture
Lufa Farms has been shaping urban agriculture since 2011, when it built the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse in Montreal. Now with over 500,000 square feet of growing space, the company is working to integrate sustainable farming into urban communities. In this month’s CEA Q&A, Chief of Staff (and Indoor Ag-Con 2025 speaker!) Rachael Warner shares lessons learned from scaling urban agriculture, the impact of new technologies, and the future of rooftop farming.
Urban Ag at Scale:
Lufa Farms has grown significantly, from the first rooftop greenhouse to multiple large-scale facilities. What lessons have you learned about scaling urban agriculture while staying true to your mission?
Our journey began with the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse in 2011, spanning 31,000 square feet. This step allowed us to grow food sustainably where people live. Over time, we recognized that to build a truly sustainable and profitable business, scaling up was essential. Fifteen years later, with over 500,000 square feet of growing space, we’ve significantly increased efficiency. With each new greenhouse, we’ve incorporated cutting-edge technologies like LED lights, diffused glass, and Ultra-Clima growing systems. These innovations have enabled us to scale while staying true to our mission of providing local, fresh, and pesticide-free produce for the city.
Indoor Farming Milestone:
In 2023, you introduced your first-ever indoor farm alongside your rooftop greenhouses. What prompted this diversification, and how does it complement your rooftop farming model?
Our indoor farm was an exciting venture born out of opportunity when we were offered unused space in the building that was housing our greenhouse and distribution center. It allowed us to optimize that space and take on a new challenge and type of farm that, to our knowledge, doesn’t exist anywhere else. The indoor farm mirrors the single-level NFT channel system used in our Anjou greenhouse but has a much greater capacity. Its capacity is remarkable, producing up to 20,000 units of vegetables daily. While it has presented challenges, it has been an incredible learning journey, thanks to our team’s dedication to improving production quality.
Technology and Innovation:
Your latest rooftop greenhouse boasts a 40% increase in vegetable yields thanks to advanced technology. Can you share some key innovations behind this leap in efficiency, and how do you see technology shaping the future of controlled environment agriculture?
Our newest rooftop greenhouse is our most technologically advanced yet, designed to grow more food with fewer resources. Using the Ultra-Clima concept, we’ve implemented high-intensity LED lights, insulated double-paned glass, a diffused glass roof, and double curtains. These innovations have allowed us to optimize energy use, maintain precise environmental controls, and significantly increase our production yields. We believe technology is the future of agriculture, enabling us to grow sustainably with less land, energy, water, and waste while ensuring urban farms remain efficient and scalable.
Marketplace Partnerships:
In addition to growing your own produce, Lufa Farms collaborates with local farmers and food makers to offer thousands of products through your online marketplace. How has this approach expanded your impact and redefined what urban farming can achieve?
While our greenhouses provide a wide variety of fresh produce, our partnerships with over 400 local farmers and food makers allow us to offer nearly everything you’d find in a neighborhood grocery store – eggs, cheese, flour, crackers, wine, and more. These collaborations help us expand our impact, connecting customers to fresh, local, and responsibly sourced food. By combining our urban farming model with a robust network of like-minded partners, we’ve reworked urban agriculture’s role, proving it can be a comprehensive solution for sustainable, city-based food systems.
Vision for the Future:
Your vision is a city of rooftop farms. What are the next steps to make this vision a reality, and how do you envision the role of urban farming evolving in cities around the world?
Our vision is bold: to scale up and ultimately serve 10% of the Montreal population and create a replicable system in other cities around the world. We want rooftop greenhouses to become a standard feature of urban development and a no-brainer for sustainable city planning. By integrating greenhouses into cities, we aim to transform urban areas into self-sufficient ecosystems. This approach brings fresh, local, and sustainable food closer to communities while showcasing how agricultural innovation can address global food security challenges. Urban farming has the potential to reshape cities, creating greener, healthier environments and a more resilient food system for the future.
Learn more about Lufa Farms here.
And join us at Indoor Ag-Con March 11-12, 2025 to hear Rachael Warner as she joins other panelists for the session: Water Wise: Maximizing Water Quality For Maximum Yields, on Tuesday , March 11, 2025 from 10:00 AM – 10:50 AM PST
In the heart of South-Central Alberta, where harsh winters and unpredictable weather can test even the most seasoned growers, 
Sunterra Greenhouse is located in Acme, South-Central Alberta (Canada), where dry air and cold nights throughout the year provide us with very good growing conditions for our crops — strawberries and tomatoes – provided we can manage the indoor climate effectively. However, when the temperature outside is -30°C (adding wind chill it can go down to -45 °C), growing conditions become exceptionally challenging. In these extreme temperatures, we rely heavily on all our growing systems: boilers, 4 levels of heating pipes, hybrid lights and energy screens to achieve 24h temperatures and a consistent environment across the growing season.
Crop management has many aspects, but not all of them rely on technology (e.g. manual tasks like lowering plants/trusses, deleafing, harvesting, or pruning flowers are still dependent on people). For greenhouse climate control, energy and water management & labor registration, we use 
Plants are directly affected by their surrounding environment, and their phenotype and full genetic potential are influenced by environmental factors. Actively managing the greenhouse environment directly impacts the quality and taste of harvested product. A stable environment, supported by automation and environmental controls, provides optimal growing conditions, such as temperature and humidity control, light management, nutrient management , pest and disease control.
Sunterra Greenhouse is committed to building a sustainable food system in Alberta. Our water use is very efficient. We collect all precipitation (rainwater and snow) from outside the greenhouse, as well as condensation from the interior, and store it in a reservoir for use in our irrigation system. We also UV-treat and recycle all the drain water to save on fertilizer and reduce the use of water by precise fertigation. Also, our soil-less cultivation hydroponic system offers greater control over nutrient supply and root environment.
What excites me most (and surprisingly, not many are talking about it) is the potential of new cultivars in the coming years. Technological advancements in gene editing (e.g. CRISPR) will permit scientists to create plants with specific and desired traits. Imagine plants that have been altered at the DNA level – without adding any foreign DNA, no GMO – specifically modified for certain traits.
It sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Good examples of this technology are the GABA-enriched tomato in Japan, the non-browning banana in the Philippines and a vitamin-rich tomato in the UK. I believe not only Sunterra but the entire industry will need to adapt to coming CRISPR-edited crops. This technology will present challenges for the entire agricultural community, including governments and regulators, in the coming years.
DANVILLE, VA (OCTOBER 4, 2024) — Building on the success of previous years, the third annual Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Summit East returned to the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) in Danville, VA from October 1-2, 2024. Co-hosted by Indoor Ag-Con and the CEA Innovation Center—a joint project with Virginia Tech’s School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, IALR and the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center —the event attracted almost 250 attendees from 35 US states, Canada, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong. The diverse audience of growers, educators, scientists, Extension personnel, suppliers, tech specialists, and government leaders gathered to explore the latest advancements in CEA technology and build valuable partnerships.
“We’re proud to see the CEA Summit East improve year after year,” said Brian Sullivan, CEO of Indoor Ag-Con. “The diversity of expertise represented here is impressive, and it’s a testament to the collaborative nature of this growing sector. “
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a steadfast supporter of the indoor agriculture sector, kicked off the event with a keynote address to a standing-room only audience. His session was immediately followed by the session, “What Is CEA: It’s Mission, Definition and Purpose,” with Paul Brentlinger, CEO, CropKing, Inc; Jessica Soare, Senior Director of Marketing, BrightFarms; Mike Ross, Co-Founder & CEO, Beanstalk; and Dr. Michael Evans, Virginia Tech and Co-Director of the CEA Innovation Center. On the second day, the Leadership Insights Panel welcomed John McMahon, Co-Founder & COO, Better Future Farms; Molly Montgomery, Acting CEO Executive Chair, AeroFarms ; Carl Gupton, CEO, Greenswell Growers; and moderator Emily Gee, CEA Alliance Board Member and Marketing Director, AeroFarms, to the stage. In addition, the panel “Horizon Ahead” moderated by Kelli Rodda, Editorial Director, GIE Media, brought together Andrew Brooks, Business Development Manager, Priva; Cody Journell, Founder | CEO, Vegg, Inc; and Maximilian Knight, CEO, Rooted Robotics, to discuss emerging trends, technological advancements and innovations shaping CEA today.
The CEA Summit featured three educational tracks – Production, Business and Education, Workforce and Training– that brought academics, growers and business experts together covering a wide range of topics ranging from food safety, economics of CEA, crop selection and aquaponics to strategies for energy management, onboarding training programs for new employees, building international partnerships. Other panel discussions and 15-minute CEA Industry & Research Showcase sessions gave attendees the chance to hear about some of the latest research findings and other industry success stories.
In addition to conference sessions, attendees had ample opportunities to visit with the Summit’s 21 tabletop exhibitors during coffee breaks, luncheon roundtables and an afternoon cocktail reception.
This year’s summit hosted the 2nd CEA Graduate Student Poster Competition to provide an opportunity for graduate students to share high quality CEA-related research; to expose commercial companies to qualified candidates; to foster collaboration between individuals in academia and in private industry. Eight finalists competed and Liam Reynolds, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign took first prize for his poster, “Evaluation of Radish, Broccoli, and Lettuce Microgreens Irrigated with Hydrothermal Liquefaction Aqueous Phase.”Nathaniel King-Smith, The Ohio State University, was awarded second place for his poster, “Exploring Sustainable Alternatives for Critical Materials: Hydroponic Cultivation of Rubber Dandelion ( T.kok-saghyz) for Rubber Production.”
The event wrapped up with group tours of the CEA Innovation Center. Conference attendees took advantage of the unique opportunity to get an inside look at the CEA Innovation Center’s hydroponic systems and facilities, including the greenhouse and vertical growing racks. They also got to hear more about some of the Center’s exciting research projects.