Project Scouting: Hydroponics Center


I am really glad I followed my hunch on the hydroponics project. That is an amazing facility and one of the most advanced I've seen here. I don't have much experience with hydroponics but from what I've seen, it works really well: the lettuce, tomato, and cucumber plants were absolutely huge! (Thursday, we met with the director Joao Monteiro.) He told us that, with hydroponics setups, you get bigger and more produce: they use a substrate and coconut fibers (to help stabilize the plant) in a pod as the plant grows up a rope.


The facility also uses both drip irrigation and mechanical spray system that they sell to farmers. However, all of the water is pumped through an elaborate, advanced valve systems (through which they can regulate fertilizer too): It was a gift from their partner in Spain. They are able to plant so many many seeds so quickly because they also have an advanced seed-sorting and soil-mixing machine from Italy. Both systems have no siblings in Cape Verde (outside of two private European companies), so I was incredibly shocked to see it.

The hydroponics center grows both small and large plants to sell and for experimentation. The farmers, he says, are well aware of the center. They get orders to grow various plants, visit local farms to observe and evaluate them, and sometimes hosts demonstrations on farming, specifically on hydroponic farming. I tried to mask my excitement but I probably wasn't successful: there just so many possibilities here for WeLab contributions and UniCV class projects! As soon as we were finished, we started drafting a project write-up and it might our first, most "finished" one. FINALLY, we're making progress.

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