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Fruit and Veg Paradise Iceland: Using Volcanic Energy in Farming
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Fruit and Veg Paradise Iceland: Using Volcanic Energy in Farming

26 MIN · EN · STATUS: [ STREAMING ]
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Iceland sits near the Arctic Circle with a climate that should make vegetable farming impossible, yet the film shows greenhouses full of tomatoes, cucumbers, and even bananas thriving there. Tómas Ponzi, a former software developer, grows more than 30 tomato varieties in a greenhouse heated to 20 degrees Celsius while it's 12 outside, supplying Reykjavik's top restaurants. The heat comes from underground: geothermal energy tapped from the country's volcanoes and geysers, which now lets Iceland grow almost 70 percent of the tomatoes and nearly all the cucumbers it eats, cutting reliance on imports from mainland Europe. The film also visits the world's northernmost banana plantation before turning to a different approach entirely: Hildur Arnardóttir, a self-sufficient farmer in the Westfjords near Ísafjörður, growing vegetables outdoors using only sunlight and her own cultivation methods, defying the region's cool summers. Her account of a growing local interest in food self-sufficiency closes the film as a counterpoint to the geothermal model.