With over 19,000 people per square kilometer, Monaco has one of the highest population densities in the world, making a less than ideal place for farming. \u00a0Yet Terre de Monaco has defied the odds. The urban agriculture company currently exploits 1,600 m\u00b2 of arable land in a country with an area just over two square kilometers. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n As Jessica Sbaraglia knows well, to grow fruits and vegetables in Monaco, you need to start from the top. And that is exactly what Terre de Monaco<\/a> does. Specialised in urban agriculture, the company installs vegetable farms on the roofs of Monaco\u2019s buildings.<\/p>
\n Terre de Monaco was founded in 2016. “Six years ago, I shut down my first company and underwent a bit of an existential crisis. What is my purpose in life, what sort of values should I embody?\u201d says Jessica Sbaraglia, who was born in Switzerland.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n That taste, I\u2019ve never been able to find anywhere else<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It was then that she remembered her parents’ vegetable garden, its fruit and vegetables, and their exceptional taste. \u201cThat taste, I\u2019ve never been able to find anywhere else,” she says. So, she starts a vegetable garden on her balcony, to “therapeutic, relaxing and rewarding” effects<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n But soon enough, Jessica Sbaraglia runs out of space. It\u2019s when she starts to “colonise” her neighbours’ balconies that she comes up with the idea for Terres de Monaco. Her new company will farm Monaco’s roofs. “They didn’t know what to do with me. They thought my ambitions a bit ridiculous. They thought it wouldn’t work, that there was no room,” she says.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Terre de Monaco grows fruits and vegetables on five different buildings. There\u2019s a \u00a0400 m\u00b2 vegetable garden on The Monte-Carlo Bay, whose produce goes straight into the kitchens of starred chef Marcel Ravin<\/a>. A second vegetable garden is on the Tour Od\u00e9on, which is now home to 450m\u00b2 of farmland, as well as 60 hens*, ten beehives, and about thirty fruit trees. Terres de Monaco has also set up vegetable gardens on the 14th floor of the Ruscino residence and on the roof of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, as well as a therapeutic garden at the Princess Grace Hospital.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\nBringing permaculture to Monaco<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Zero carbon, zero waste<\/h2>\n\n\n\n