Análisis comparativo de la producción de flores y hortalizas bajo invernadero entre Chile y Países Bajos

Abstract

The production of flowers and vegetables under glass enables greater control of environmental variables such as temperature, humidity and light. In addition, it allows optimising the use of water and fertilisers, as well as helping to reduce the incidence of pests, diseases and weeds, generating a safer production, of better quality and higher yields compared to production in the open air. However, greenhouse production has a high initial cost and depends on the economic access of the producer, varying the type of structure, material and technologies used, which are directly associated with the environmental conditions of the location in which they are established. This research aims to compare the production of flowers and vegetables under glass between Chile and the Netherlands, in order to identify opportunities for improvement in the Chilean context, ranging from structures to the use of technologies used, the climate control system, irrigation or fertilisation and process automation. This collection of information was obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with producers in both countries, together with an exhaustive bibliographic review. The results obtained show that, in Chile, most of the production has a limited use of technology and automation due to high initial costs, as well as little or no automation of processes; also highlighting that the use of these is focused on the production of vegetables such as lettuce and tomato. On the other hand, production in the Netherlands is highly automated, mainly focused on light and temperature control, as well as having a highly regulated management of agrochemicals by governmental entities, which differs from the national situation. Despite the large differences between Chile and the Netherlands in the use of technology and scale of production, several opportunities were found for technology transfer to improve production in Chile. Therefore, through the selective implementation of technologies used in the Netherlands, it is possible to enhance national greenhouse production in both horticulture and floriculture.