Spain has 66,000 hectares of crops in plastic greenhouses
February 18, 2009
Spain is the country with more surface area of cultivation in plastic greenhouses, almost 66,000 hectares in 2008, according to the Cotec Foundation. Specifically, according to recent data made public by the Ministry Environment and Rural and marine in 2008, Spain counts with a total of 65.989 hectares, of which nearly 44,500 are concentrated in Andalusia, 9.100 in Murcia, 7,500 in the Canary Islands and 1,735 in the community Valencian.
Intending to contribute to sensitizing companies about business opportunities offered by technological developments in the field of plastic greenhouses, Cotec has released a paper on 'Technological opportunities in the sector of plastic greenhouses'. The work describes the importance of agriculture under plastic in Spain and looks at the technologies involved (materials, electro-mechanical systems, biological systems, etc.), particularly emphasizing the technological opportunities arising from new applications and the challenges facing this activity.
Traditionally plastic greenhouses have been used for the cultivation of vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants, but there are numerous activities such as aquaculture, the capture of solar energy, the desalination of water, the biomining, the drying of skin or the breeding of snails or crocodiles, among others, in which the technology developed for the greenhouses for vegetable crops plastic can be applied.
