FRESHER FOOD
What do we do at Four Season Farm?
We’re recruiting a Head Grower! Four Season Farm is looking for someone with formal horticultural training with hands-on experience in a professional growing setting. The successful applicant doesn’t necessarily need to have hydroponic growing experience as full training will be given. The most important thing is that applicants have bags of enthusiasm for horticulture, and can see the bigger picture of where we are trying to take the business.
Salary: £25,000 – £30,000 per year, depending on experience. Please send CV and a covering letter to fsfscotland@gmail.com
Application closing date: 31 May 2024
At Four Season Farm we grow lettuce and herbs in our hydroponic greenhouse throughout the year. We grow in summer with natural sunlight and in winter we use supplementary LED lights. We have triple layer insulation on the roof and double layer insulation on the walls that keep the heat in the greenhouse when it is cold outside. It has the added benefit of keeping 99.9% of the light inside the greenhouse when the LED lights are turned on to avoid local light pollution. We have a smart thermal energy storage system that is unique in UK commercial horticulture, and most of our electricity is supplied by our own solar PV system. We supply the wholesale market in Scotland with our fantastic fresh produce.
What problem are we trying to solve?
The UK relies heavily on fruit and vegetable imports. 48% of our vegetables and 84% of our fruit are imported from outside of the UK. This causes a number of problems:
1. Food imports have a high carbon footprint. Throughout the year fruit and vegetables are being
flown, driven and shipped into the UK. This has a large negative impact on carbon emissions and
pollution.
2. Food imports don’t taste as good and are less healthy for you compared to locally grown
produce. Tomatoes lose 50% of their nutritional value within a week of refrigerated transport.
3. Food imports are vulnerable to global supply shocks. This is more true today than ever. The war in Ukraine has caused food bills to increase significantly in the last year.
By 2050 the world will need to produce 70% more food in order to feed over 9 billion people.
There is no more suitable agricultural land unless ecosystems such as rainforests are replaced by farm land.
How does Four Season Farm help to solve this problem?
We harvest our produce and send it straight to market. It tastes fresher and it is better for you.
We have installed a solar PV system on the adjacent cow shed roof. This provides electrical power for the LED lights. Our clever Climate Battery stores the heat from summer to be used in winter, and our triple layer insulation keeps this heat inside the greenhouse during the coldest days. Our greenhouse produce is not reliant on a complicated global supply network. Our produce is consumed in the country where we grow it.
Hydroponic greenhouses are considerably more efficient than traditional outdoor horticulture.
Crop density is much higher so we use less space. Growing in a protected environment with
supplementary lighting allows many more growing cycles per year compared to outdoor
horticulture.
Our greenhouse uses much less water than outdoor agriculture. We use much less fertiliser
compared to traditional horticulture because we can provide to the roots exactly what they need. There is no water run off like you get in a field meaning that eutrophication and acidification is not a problem. Hydroponics do not require soil so there is no soil erosion!
Why South West Scotland?
Four Season Farm is located on the tip of the Solway Firth which benefits from a micro-climate and is the sunniest part of the whole Scotland. Our greenhouse benefits from irradiance levels as high as locations hundreds of miles south such as Oxford and London. However when you head a few miles north of our greenhouse, the sunlight levels drop off considerably. It’s a meteorological marvel and why our farm is located in the Costa del Solway!
Are we a vertical farm?
We have things in common but we are not exactly the same. A vertical farm is a fully controlled
indoor growing environment where variables such as water and fertiliser inputs are controlled very
precisely for optimum plant growth. Four Season Farm does this as well. However the main
difference is that our greenhouse uses natural sunlight when available for plant photosynthesis,
whereas vertical farms use LED lights throughout the year and do not use natural sunlight at all.
We don’t think this is sensible – natural sunlight is the best source of light for plant growth, and it
is free. So when it’s sunny we use natural sunlight, and when it’s not we turn the lights on.