Well our first large scale hydroponic greenhouse operator is in full production and are they producing.  Go Veggie Fresh!!

Using first world technology and management the Panamanian company Veggie Fresh Invest will be sending two containers a week to the U.S. of peppers produced hydroponically.

“I would say we did things as they should be done, which is a little opposite to how traditional farmers do things: first plant and then look for the customer,” said the entrepreneur Guillermo Villarreal, owner of the company.

“His company Veggie Fresh Invest, Inc. received the highest accolade, the National Award for Business Innovation 2013, awarded by the National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (Senacyt) and the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (Cciap) …” , noted an article in Prensa.com

Every week the company will export two containers of colored peppers to the U.S., which are harvested from 10.5 acres using a method nine greenhouse modules, a project in which some 18 businessmen have invested about $18 million in total.

The plant also has a sector for packaging and cold chain, which gives them an advantage according to Villareal, as “post-harvest handling is another of the great weaknesses of agriculture in Panama.”

One of the reasons that the entrepreneur decided to chose this method of harvest is because during trips he made to countries in Central America, Holland, Spain, Mexico, the USA and Canada, “… I was able to determine that the only farming where the farmer was happy, because he receives proceeds proportionate to his efforts, was in the form of climate controlled and hydroponic farming” said Villareal.

Furthermore, this method “allows you to access the EU market”, because if the product “is not hydroponic, they wont buy it.”

Source: Prensa.com