Agropark is preparing 13 new hectares of greenhouses that will be added to the first stage of the park, which will now have a total of 148 hectares.
This will require an investment of nearly 32.5 million pesos and generate 120 to 156 new jobs, stated the general director of the Association of Greenhouses of the Agropark High-Tech GreenHouse Cluster, Saul Baez Hernandez.
Each hectare requires an investment of nearly 2.5 million pesos and generates 10 to 12 jobs, he said.With these new hectares, the park will have 148 hectares of greenhouses, i.e. 81.3% of the 182 hectares projected in the first stage of the Agropark.
"The Agropark continues to increase the area devoted to greenhouses; now we are developing 13 additional hectares so that we can soon reach the 182 productive hectares we have projected having. With these 13 hectares we will have a total of 148 hectares," he said.
In 2019, we plan to achieve having all of the 182 hectares that were proposed for the first stage, he said.
Varieties
Currently, the park produces 150,000 tons of tomatoes, peppers, and American cucumber each year. Saul Baez said they mainly produced tomato, pepper, and cucumber, but that they were thinking about producing aubergines or other products. However, they still haven't taken this step, as there are complications to trade some species, and the return of profits makes it unfeasible.
The Agropark sends 100% of its production to the United States and Canada.
There are some other options, eggplant or some type of specialty, but there won't be a radical change, mainly because of the calculation of the return of profits and the ease of trading certain products," he said.
Agropark High-Tech GreenHouse Cluster is located on state highway 100, in the municipality of Colon, and employs 2,400 workers. The first stage of the Agropark consists of 295 hectares of land, 182 of which are designed for greenhouses. The park operates with 11 national and international agricultural companies.
In 2017, the state's protected agriculture produced 110,736 tons of agricultural food products, i.e. 41.2% more than in the previous year. The value of production grew by 30.7%, since it went from 785 million pesos in 2016 to 1,026 million in 2017, according to information from the Agricultural Development Secretariat.
Based on information from the state secretariat, there are 910 protected agricultural estates in the state, which amount to 360 hectares that are concentrated in the municipalities of Colon, Pedro Escobedo, and San Juan del Rio.
Source: eleconomista.com