Italy Declares not to be Outdone by British 'Sub' Urban Farming, Have Their own Take on 'Sub' Urban Farming Underwater

The stand for the region of Liguria at the Milan 2015 Expo features a project as bizarre-sounding as it is intriguing: an attempt to grow crops underwater, inside air-filled biospheres. It's part of an effort that could prove a low-cost, low-energy solution to grow food in parts of the world where this was not previously possible.

Though of fascinating beauty, the land in the region of Liguria in Northern Italy is known to be especially poor for farming. Between the crowded population, rocky terrain, steep hills that often give way to landslides, and the periodic floods, the locals have had to resort to energy-inefficient terrace farming.

This is not an isolated problem: lack of fertile land and adverse climate conditions around the world means we've seen several projects involving growing crops creatively, including underground, inside a skyscraper, in a tiny greenhouse and even in the cloud, to try and deal with the issue.

For their project, however, scuba diving company owner Sergio Gamberini and his son Luca have picked an even more unusual spot: under the sea, inside biospheres 6 to 9 meters (20 to 30 ft) below the surface, just off the Ligurian tourist beaches of the town of Noli, near Savona.

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