Farmers grow lettuce in world's driest desert

In Chile's arid Atacama, the driest desert in the world, growers and researchers are looking to harness water from the very air itself to grow lettuces and lemons, using a net to catch drops of moisture from fog."We are growing hydroponic lettuce entirely with fog water in the driest desert on the planet," Orlando Rojas, president of the Atacama Fog Catchers Association, told Reuters near Chanaral in the Atacama, where some areas do not see rainfall for years. Researchers at the UC Atacama Desert Centre are launching an open-access web mapping platform to show the location of the areas with potential for fog-water harvesting in the country, trying to open up these arid areas for cultivation. Amid barren rocky hills and dry, white sand, the system works by using a mesh suspended between two poles that intercepts the small amount of moisture in the air, turning it into droplets that are collected and stored in water tanks."We are able to collect 1 000 to 1 400 litres of water in these inhospitable places, where we are clearly not favoured by nature in other ways," said Rojas in a region where lemon trees were also growing from the collected water."We have the potential for life, which is this water resource. Once we learned about this project, we haven't stopped because it is vital for human subsistence."

Farmers grow lettuce in world's driest desert

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Namibian Sun 2026-08-26

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Farmers grow lettuce in world's driest desert

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Namibian Sun 2026-08-26

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