On Chongming Island, just outside of Shanghai, China's most populated city, tomatoes and cucumbers are harvested and packaged in a glass greenhouse operated by Dutch-based FoodVentures .
Irrigation, temperature and lighting systems are managed with high-level technology in this greenhouse, which is one of the dozens of facilities that are located on the outskirts of China's megacities and easily bring their products to consumers.
FoodVentures director Dirk Aleven , who stated that they have seen a great acceleration since the corona virus, states that while products were supplied from production areas thousands of kilometers away in the past, it is even more important today that the products are produced where they are consumed. For this reason, according to Aleven, there is a trend towards sustainable and professional supply.
China, the world's largest producer of vegetables, has been producing greenhouses for decades. But food supply disruptions caused by the coronavirus in 2020 accelerated the development of high-tech glass greenhouses in China.
Growers in greenhouses say middle-class incomes are now willing to pay more for quality food produced with less pesticide use.
According to Richland Sources , a consultancy firm, glass greenhouses in China increased by 28% in 2020 , much faster than the greenhouse increase rate of 5.9% in 2019 and the rate of increase of less costly plastic greenhouses by 6% . is too much.
Lim Xin Yi , sustainability director of Pinduoduo , China's largest e-commerce platform, mentioned that since the epidemic, consumers tend to buy agricultural products that they trust and find healthy, mostly online.
In China, where vegetable production has historically been concentrated in a certain geography, complex cold chain logistics networks were required for food to reach the markets of major cities.
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The vulnerability of this system, which existed during the pandemic period in 2020, was revealed. During the epidemic, product flow to consumers was interrupted in the seafood market in Wuhan, the origin of the pandemic, or in a large fruit and vegetable market in Beijing. This distress caused food shortages and spoilage of crops.
According to Gayathree Ganesan , an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit , the outbreak has resulted in a reduction in the number of intermediaries in the fresh food industry supply chain network.
Greenhouses built within city limits to reduce the distance to buyers are often joint ventures between Chinese real estate firms and Dutch greenhouse companies, a major player in agricultural technology.
One of FoodVentures' greenhouses outside Shanghai, three football fields long and twice the height, is capable of producing 120 tons of cherry tomatoes per month.
According to Aleven, the first protection against any virus starts with being healthy, and that's why people care even more about what they eat. Stating that they have seen the problems caused by long logistics times during the pandemic period, Aleven says that localizing production as much as possible is the only solution.
Greenhouse-grown produce is often sold directly on e-commerce platforms and supermarkets, bypassing the many middlemen and wholesalers in China's vegetable supply chain.
Chinese retail giant Suning , which owns 80% of Carrefour China, said its cooperation with greenhouses in cities has grown steadily over the past two years to meet consumer demands.
By 2025, China aims to increase the highly productive agricultural land in its major cities to over 300 hectares .
This growth could further strengthen China's top vegetable producer status. With its current production, China accounts for 75% or more of the global production of cucumbers (cucumbers), green beans, spinach and asparagus.