Environmentally-conscious individuals of Melbourne will be able to sip their soy lattes at a planned rooftop car park-turned-pop-up farm in the heart of the city while also helping charities.
The Skyfarm proposal for Melbourne’s 2000 square metre Siddeley Street car park rooftop includes a working farm, bee hives, licensed cafe and workshops at an eco education centre.
The pop-up farm will produce more than five tonnes of produce each year to supply the cafe as well as charities, its backers say.
Skyfarm is the brainchild of urban farming company Biofilta, not-for-profit organisation Odonata and the Sustainable Landscape Company.
They hope to have the project finished by late next year but it’s still to receive planning approval from the City of Melbourne, which has contributed $300,000 to the project.
It will take over the upper levels of the 15-storey Siddeley St car park, which are no longer in use, with the remaining floors kept for cars.
“It is a bold and exciting step towards a future where nature in cities is the norm,” the project’s director and chair of Odonata, Nigel Sharp, said.
A small test farm is already operating at Port Melbourne and has produced more than 300kg of vegetables and herbs in less than six months, most of it going to food charity OzHarvest.
With AAP.