In the Caijin Smart Agriculture Industrial Park in Tianqu New District, Dezhou, Shandong, there are red, yellow, purple, green and other varieties of tomatoes. "Our greenhouse covers an area of around 33.6 hectares and was completed in 2019. A number of Dutch smart agricultural technologies have been introduced, including bumblebees, cultivation gutters, labor systems, and substrates," said Xue Lin, from the Park.
"We made a comprehensive comparison of the agricultural models of Israel, the United States, and the Netherlands, and finally chose the Dutch smart greenhouse as the development path. Energy costs are a problem that all horticultural companies must face. Dezhou is located in the North China Plain, on the path of the West-East Gas Pipeline, but the cost of pipeline natural gas is extremely high. Future development should fully consider resources such as waste heat from power plants and geothermal heat to reduce energy costs. "
"In addition, personnel management and terminal sales in the market cannot be ignored. How to attract more talents to join agriculture and how to better train workers? We are now cooperating with Bayer to try out a labor system. Only convenience and ease of use can be accepted by front-line workers. The terminal sales of the products depend on the planting varieties on the one hand. China's taste preferences are very different from those in Europe and are closer to those in Japan. This is one of the reasons why Momotaro tomatoes are very good in the Chinese market. The market needs more varieties bred specifically for Chinese consumers. "
"The varieties cultivated by greenhouse horticulture are of higher quality and higher cost than ordinary cultivated varieties, so we need to choose the right sales channels. At present, the products of our Park mainly cover the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region."
"China's greenhouse horticulture market is very large, and it is also rapidly absorbing the technical experience from agriculturally developed countries such as the Netherlands and Israel; but at the same time, China has a vast territory and diverse climate types, and all construction needs to be adapted to local conditions. We also very much hope to strengthen cooperation with external companies, conduct localized management in terms of technology, personnel, and varieties, and jointly promote the development of facility agriculture. "