Didi Qian, GreenQ China:
"Communication is the bottleneck when putting knowledge in to practice"
In China there are millions of hectares with greenhouses that are operated by the elder generation greenhouse growers. These growers are not easy to be convinced about new growing strategies or improving their efficiency. "They are very experienced growers, but they are hesitating and are very conservative" said Qian. "Luckily, the next generation of growers is more open for new applications despite the fact that they are still unexperienced."
Qian has an extensive background in horticulture; she studied horticulture in China, Australia, and in The Netherlands. As she started to work as an Area manager China for GreenQ, it took time for her to bridge the theoretical knowledge with practical application, even though she had a strong horticultural background by studying in Wageningen University.
She explained us that there are several changes going on in China: Slow developments with new technologies and private investors who are entering the scene. But this also brings in problems.
"More Chinese private investors are eager to step into the agricultural industry", said Qian. "They also want to invest in problems, but are undergoing difficulties because they do not know how to choose the right system. ANd if they finally find out what to built, they find it hard to recruit the right people to operate it. "
High tech greenhouse project of NERCPA; the National Engineering Research Center of Protected Agriculture in Shanghai.
GreenQ helps investors to choose the right greenhouse. "We offer consultancy and make a functional design of the greenhouse, so that they know what kind of greenhouse they need before going to approach greenhouse suppliers. We also approach the younger generation or traditional growers to manage these high tech greenhouse operations. But we need to educate them as well, because it is really difficult for them to manage it without any practical education on high tech greenhouse management".
In regards to general trends in the Chinese greenhouse industry, Qian told us about the transition from soil to soil less cultivation that takes place in many solar greenhouses. A reason for this is food safety, because Chinese consumers are suspicious about the quality of domestic grown fresh produce. "Many traditional farmers experienced troubles with the depleted soil and started to use a lot of chemicals and pesticide to increase their yields. Now that the Chinese consumers are more picky, the farmers finally want to grow more sustainable with the help of hydroponics, but good education is needed."
According to Qian there is a certain group of growers that is eager to learn more and that wants to follow training courses. "We help them, but you will have to understand that it takes time (multiple seasons) before they can make big jumps. We educate them with basic knowledge and learn them that the production output is not only related to climate and irrigation but also to many other things; proper maintenance and basic things like fruit pruning etcetera. In some cases they have never heard about this before."
These first steps made by the traditional farmers are paving the way for more innovation and progression. Qian: "Consultation on soilless cultivation is the first step to a better product, but also offers possibilities to implement other Dutch technologies like drip irrigation and in a later stadium the Chinese might become interested in automated climate control and other technologies. This is also being researched in a project that is taking place at commercial premises in Shouguang: There they have built several new, different solar greenhouses for trials and experiments."
But according to Qian, the challenge of putting all this knowledge into commercial practice will be the communication. "We are active in China for a few years now, and we have learned that 30% of improving the Chinese horticulture depends on providing knowledge. The other 70% is communication; dealing with cultural differences. We have experienced in the past that communication is the bottleneck; we can install new materials inside a greenhouse, but if a growers is not taught how to use it, he might experience a result that is even worse than the traditional situation."
As an example, Qian tells about the implementation of Bumblebees. "There were some Chinese farmers that installed the Dutch bumblebees systems inside their solar greenhouses a few years ago; but they complained that the bumblebees did not come out of the boxes, and that there crops remained unpollinated. The consultant found out that this was due to the high amounts of pesticides they used. this shows how important the education will be in order to adapt Dutch horticulture successfully!"
On the 1st of May 2015, DLV GreenQ launched their subsidiary in China . This company, GreenQ (Shanghai) Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd, mainly focuses on advising the Chinese horticulture, glasshouse vegetables, soft fruit, potato and floriculture.
For more information:
GreenQ
Didi Qian
Didi.Qian@greenq.nl
www.greenq.nl/en