Greener greenhouses

A P.E.I. farming family has become the first in Canada to heat their greenhouses entirely with biomass energy

-  ROSEMARY MANTINI

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND may be small in size, but its drive to become carbon neutral rivals that of Canada’s larger provinces and territories. In the spring of 2020, Marc and Krista Schurman, owners of Atlantic Grown Organics in Kensington, partnered with the provincial and federal governments to become the first farm in Canada to heat their 1.6-hectare greenhouse operation entirely with locally sourced biomass.

It takes a lot of energy to keep Canadian greenhouses warm, and most operations use fossil fuels to do so. But innovation in biomass heat is a story that spans two generations of the Schurman family. In the mid-1980s, Marc’s father installed a boiler system fuelled by round bales of straw. Later, Marc traded the straw for wood chips and oilseed byproduct sourced from a neighbouring farm. However, when the family expanded their greenhouse in 2017, the Schurmans were forced to supplement biomass with fuel oil. For a family that had been so committed to green and sustainable farm management, relying on fossil fuels did not sit well.