Iceland review - 2013, Síða 45

ICELAND REVIEW 43
Bjarni when asked what the future holds
for greenhouse farming. Helena dismisses a
question on whether they would consider
expanding into fruit production with a laugh.
“I think we should concentrate on making
the investments in enlarging our greenhouses
pay off first.”
It’s always a question of costs and benefits,
Bjarni explains, and the starting costs are
high. “But there might come a day when
someone sees the potential in operating
a large-scale greenhouse next to a power
plant,” he adds, thereby eliminating the cost
of energy distribution. “At the same time it
would pose a threat to current greenhouse
farming due to its small size and the relatively
few people involved.”
This is a potential recognized by founders
of GeoGreenhouse, a company aiming for
tomato export to the U.K. The plan is for the
greenhouse to rise next to Hellisheiði power
plant near Reykjavík and cover 50,000
square meters in the first stage. It would
be ten times larger than the greenhouses at
Friðheimar and cover more than a quarter
of the area of all of Iceland’s greenhouses,
glass and plastic, today. “We are in talks with
investors,” says GeoGreenhouse managing
director Sveinn Aðalsteinsson. He adds that
negotiations are at a sensitive stage but hopes
that a deal can be announced in the coming
months.
Environmentalists would celebrate if
greenhouse farming were ever to become as
important to the national economy as alu-
minum smelters. One activist, internationally
renowned musician Björk, has even suggest-
ed that the controversial smelter under con-
struction in Helguvík in Southwest Iceland
be changed to a giant greenhouse, making
Iceland self-sufficient in fruits and vegetables.
An orchard in the snow would probably be a
dream come true for both farmers and con-
sumers but so far, it is only a pipe dream. 
Powder snow covers the ground
outside friðheimar but inside the
greenhouses, geothermal heating and
grow lights create the illusion
of eternal summer.
Helgi Jakobsson at gufuhlíð admires
his jungle of cucumber lianas.
Colorful gerbera fields inside the
greenhouses of Espiflöt.