The construction of a giant greenhouse to cultivate tomatoes for export is in preparation in the Sudurnes region on Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland. The greenhouse could create between 60-100 full-time jobs in the employment-starved region.
Inside an Icelandic greenhouse. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
“Such a greenhouse would require 15 megawatts of electricity […], so that’s five to ten jobs per megawatt. For comparison, there is half to one job behind each megawatt in an aluminum smelter,” Gylfi Árnason, project manager at the Association of Local Authorities in Iceland, told Morgunbladid.
The plan is that the greenhouse, which is estimated to cost around ISK 5 billion (USD 43 million, EUR 31 million), could produce enough tomatoes for export as early as 2014. It would have to be ten hectares in size, which is larger than ten football pitches.
Click here to read more about smelter plans in the region and here to read about a silicon factory that will be built there.
