Think growing tomatoes on the moon is hard? Try Yellowknife.

Canadian researchers are using space technology to grow crops above the 60th parallel.

Using a hydroponic system designed to feed astronauts, residents can harvest fruits and vegetables year-round in the extreme climate of northern Canada.

The plan ist to send five of the prototypes to Northern Farm Training Institute in Hay River, N.W.T.

Environmental biologist Mike Dixon knows what it takes to grow plants in barren places, both on and off Earth.

“The moon or Mars is as equally harsh an environment as the Northwest Territories, where you don’t routinely grow food outdoors,” says Dixon, a University of Guelph professor and director of the school’s Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility.

“It is damn hard to eat something fresh in the Canadian North. Employing this technology is sensible.”

It takes 12 days for strawberries to travel from Mexico to Yellowknife. Shipped-in food is expensive: Bananas that cost about $1.25 a kilo in Toronto are $4.17 in Nunavut.

It’s also hard to come by. One in three people experiences food insecurity each month in Nunavut, says Food Secure Canada.

“Some communities have no soil in which to grow their own food, and traditional food is difficult to access for various reasons (high cost of going out on the land, loss of traditional knowledge and more),” says the advocacy group’s Northern & Remote Food Network.

The northern pilot project will grow six perishable foods — cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, bell peppers, lettuce and herbs — otherwise imported.

It isn’t a greenhouse, which needs sunlight to grow plants. Picture instead a sealed, stainless steel cube the size of a baker’s rack, with shelving and a thick glass roof through which shines cutting-edge LED lighting. This allows 24-hour growth, 12 months a year in a region where the sun barely rises for months on end.

The LEDs are a big factor. Strawberry growers in Japan tripled their yield using supplemental blue LEDs, while in Holland purple LEDs stimulate lettuce growth.

For the prototype, Norwegian lighting firm Intravision customized the spectrum for optimal photosynthesis. Dixon’s lab is working on the right colour “recipe” for each plant.

“We have to be careful. By adjusting the lighting, we can make the plants taste different. You don’t want a strawberry that tastes like a doughnut,” he says.

The self-contained, computerized farming system promotes self-sufficiency and good nutrition in remote places. It is now used in the Kuwaiti desert, another hostile environment, to grow cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

Thirty of these prototypes cost about $2 million to build.

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Bringing the space angle down to earth isn’t so strange, says another partner on the project.

“There are quite a few similarities between Mars and the North. The type of system for both environments has to be resource efficient, contain multiple backups and offer high-nutritional value,” said physicist Alan Scott of Com Dev, an Ottawa space-hardware firm that engineered the prototype.

Dixon says extreme terrestrial agriculture is the testing ground for space farming.

“The next worst place to grow a plant after a Canadian snow bank has got to be the moon,” says Dixon.

Sounds like a challenge.

Correction - May 12, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said it cost $2 million to build one of the greenhouse prototypes sent to Kuwait. As well, the previous version said five of the units are destined for the Northern Farm Training Institute in Hay River, Northwest Territories. In fact, this plan is still in the proposal stage.

