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(Bloomberg) The pandemic, with its broken supply lines and closed borders, has been a worrying reminder of Quebec’s dependence on imported food. Roughly 75% of its fresh fruits and vegetables, in fact, come from elsewhere.
Inside a windowless metal cube in a building on the outskirts of the province’s largest city, Montreal, Yves Daoust is trying to make a dent in those numbers.
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The cube houses some 3,800 strawberry plants arranged in vertical gardens, pollinated by bumble bees and brushed by morning dew. The carefully controlled environment is tracked by sensors and attempts to mimic ideal summer conditions year-round in a city where the average outdoor temperature in January is 13.6 degrees Fahrenheit (-10.2 degrees Celsius) and the winter cold doesn’t let up until May.