Inside the Arctic Circle, a chef is growing the kind of vegetables and herbs — potatoes, thyme, tomatoes, green peppers — more fitted for a suburban garden in a temperate zone than a land of northern lights, glaciers and musk oxen. Some Inuit hunters are finding reindeer fatter than ever thanks to more grazing on this frozen tundra, and, for some, there is no longer a need to trek hours to find wild herbs.
This is climate change in Greenland, where locals say longer and warmer summers mean the country can grow the kind of crops unheard of years ago. But now the summer days seem warmer, and longer. It was C in March but the sun was out and the air was still, with an almost spring-like feel.
Mr Ernst showed me his greenhouse and an outdoor winter garden which in a few months may sprout again. Hundreds of miles south, some farmers now produce hay, and sheep farms have grown in size. Some supermarkets in the capital, Nuuk, sell locally grown vegetables in the summer.
Major commercial crop production is still in its infancy. But it is a sign of the changes here that Greenland's government set up a commission this year to study how a changing climate may help farmers increase agricultural production and replace expensive imported foods. Change is already under way.
Potatoes grown commercially in southern Greenland reached over tons in , double the yield of Vegetable production in the region may double this year compared with , according to government data. Some politicians hope global warming will allow this country, fully a quarter the size of the United States, to reduce its dependence on its former colonial master, Denmark, for much of its food as political parties push for full independence.
