Creating a circular food system in the arctic extremes.

In This Podcast: Dropping everything and moving to the northernmost city in the world might be what some people would call ‘extreme’, yet Chef Benjamin Vidmar did that and is going even further by working towards a zero-waste food system for the city. He shares how this project uses permaculture in a city that imports its food and exports its waste, and how he has garnered the city leaders’ support. Listen in to see how you can help.

Benjamin is an Eco-chef and Foodie from Cleveland, Ohio with over 20 years of international experience. After working for 18 years as a professional chef in the United States, Asia, and Scandinavia, he visited Svalbard, Norway for the first time in 2007 and instantly fell in love with the Arctic. After several years as the head chef at Svalbard Pub, he felt called to interrupt and innovate a food system that simply wasn’t working.

In 2015 he created Polar Permaculture to help restore sustainable systems in the “northern most” town in the world. Today, Polar Permaculture produces farm fresh, nutritious vegetables, microgreens, and sprouts for the local community with a sustainable, circular system in mind.  Their intent is to produce enough food for the entire town of Longyearbyen and process all of the community’s organic and biological waste.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/12/03/499-benjamin-vidmar/ for the show notes on this episode, and access to our full podcast library!

499: Benjamin Vidmar on Growing Food at the Pole.