Greentech Mexico gets ready for final day

If you are interested in what's happening in the Mexican greenhouse market, new technologies available in the country, improving your cultivation with knowledge or tools, or simply catching up with growers and industry representatives, today is your final day to visit GreenTech Americas, taking place this week in Querétaro.

The trade show, combined with several knowledge-sharing events, brings the industry together. Yesterday, Power Day took place, themed "People First: Your people, your greatest asset: How a Corporate Culture of Strategy, Planning, and Training Generates Efficiency, Well-Being, and Retention." The event also features a three-day conference program. Today's focus is: Facing Challenges for the Future.

Mexican market
The Mexican market has seen rapid growth in recent decades and has become the most important supplier of vegetables to the United States. On top of acreage expansion, this has resulted in investments in cultivation technology in and around the greenhouses.

The goal is to improve production, to improve quality, to lengthen the season, to grow more with less, and to reduce costs. Compared to U.S. standards, labour is relatively cheap, but costs have increased, and finding the right people is a challenge well known in the Mexican market, as much as it is elsewhere. That's why growers tend to look at automation solutions, combined with manual labour.

However, developments involving international trade—especially for tomatoes, following the end of the Tomato Suspension Agreement, which resulted in import tariffs—along with reduced availability of capital for the CEA industry, are putting constraints on the Mexican sector. Logistics also remain challenging: due to cartel-related violence in parts of the country, the hours during which drivers are available and insured to work are limited. Additionally, after rapid expansion in soft fruit—mainly the blueberry market—this industry is experiencing some growing pains, which have slowed further expansion.

Yet, as market demand continues to grow, the industry keeps evolving and improving. Aside from suppliers, several large grower-shippers are also present as exhibitors at the event to showcase their production, meet their growers, or expand their footprint in the Mexican market.

Today is the final day of the event, we'll publish our full photo report next week. Feel free to send a message to share your novelty!