Chinese interview with Dutch company Meteor Systems by Agriculture media 35 Dou

With a strong commitment to innovation, the family-owned company is becoming the top of the horticulture

With the advent of the era of Industry 4.0, technological changes have transformed traditional agriculture into industrialized and large-scale modern agriculture, and China's?horticulture has ushered in a good period of vigorous development. The so-called?horticulture refers to the use of high-tech to provide good environmental conditions for planting, aquaculture, and product storage and preservation, thereby cultivating efficient and high-quality agricultural products, including facility horticulture and facility farming.

S2G Ventures predicted in one of its reports: "In 2025,?horticulture will support more than 10% of vegetable and herb crops, and will bring huge growth opportunities to growers in the next decade." At this stage, the Netherlands, Japan and Israel are the three leading countries in the development of?horticulture in the world, among which the glass greenhouse in the Netherlands is one of the most important branches of the world?horticulture technology system.

Looking at China, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics and China Investment Industry Research Institute, at the end of 2018, China's greenhouses covered an area of 361,000 hectares, and greenhouses covered 1,055,000 hectares. At that time, China's greenhouses had already ranked No. 1 in the world. First,?horticulture is developing rapidly. Among them, the introduction of overseas high-quality facility agricultural models and equipment is indispensable.

Meteor Systems is a Dutch family company founded in 1997, whose products are mainly used to grow vegetables, soft fruits, cut flowers, medicinal cannabis, leafy greens and herbs. Meteor Systems provides complete solutions for indoor and outdoor horticultural production and distribution around the world, including growing systems, irrigation systems, hydroponic systems and fruit covers. Starting as a small family-owned business 25 years ago, Meteor Systems has grown through the ages to become the global market leader in complete growing systems for greenhouse horticulture.

Recently, 35 Dou interviewed Xu Junyi, representative of Meteor Systems China. She sorted out the origins, business fields and development plans of Meteor Systems for us, and detailed the development trend of China's future in horticulture.

?Meteor Systems came at the end of the last century

Xu Junyi told us that the development of horticulture in the Netherlands can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage was from the beginning of the 20th century to 1950. During this period, the Netherlands mainly used simple glass greenhouse technologies such as low walls and single slope, which could only meet the winter needs of greenhouse plants; the second stage was from the 1950s to the 1980s. At the end of the 1990s, the Dutch government strongly supported the development of facility horticulture. Among them, technologies such as carbon dioxide-assisted fertilization and greenhouse simulated climate systems were widely used, and the yield and quality of horticulture were greatly improved at this stage. The third stage is from the early 1990s to the present. At that time, the Netherlands was in a critical period of transition from soil cultivation to soilless cultivation. The main focus was on the sustainable development of horticultural facilities, and technologies such as solar power generation were widely used in facility agriculture, making horticultural facilities a green and comprehensive industry.

In this context, Meteor Systems came into being in 1997. It started with the gutter in a?greenhouse to provided different planting, drainage and irrigation solutions for different crops. With the advancement of technology, the family company has gradually become one of the important suppliers of the Dutch horticulture market. The entry of Meteor Systems into the Chinese market is also based on the background of the rapid development of China's?horticulture in 2018-2019, and the overall change in agriculture. At that time, China had a trend of large-scale development in glasshouse. In 2019, Meteor Systems introduced the products and technologies into China, starting from scratch, aiming that Chinese growers can use more convenient and preferential facility products, have in-depth technical thinking, and contribute to the development of?horticulture in China.

At this stage, Meteor Systems can develop specialized growing solutions for different crops, including vegetables, soft fruit, cut flowers, medicinal cannabis, leafy greens and herbs. In a complete solution, Meteor Systems provides growers with growing systems, irrigation systems, heating pipe supports and fruit covers.

1. Growing systems: The system mainly includes the growing gutters and its accessories. Among them, the gutter is the basic part of the growing system. It has 35 different shapes according to the individual needs of customers. At the same time, the drain can be circulated and drained, which will greatly reduce the use of water and fertilizers to save costs.

2. The irrigation system: This includes five basic elements such as pre-assembled drip irrigation system, PE pipe and micro-irrigation pipe, plant pegs and spray stakes, sprinkler head and kit. Meteor Systems' irrigation products can be factory pre-assembled with high precision while saving labor costs.

3. Heating pipe support: The main function of the pipe rail is to support the heating pipes between crops, and bay wide support is to form a regular spacing in the greenhouse, which can be used for further automation of the production process.

4 Fruit covers: The market for soft fruit is booming and Meteor Systems provides fruit covers and tunnels for strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cherries and more. Through leading technology, light, air and water can be maximized to provide crops with nutritional necessities and necessary protection more efficiently.

Customize the development path of ?horticulture with Chinese characteristics to truly benefit Chinese growers

The development of?horticulture is an important symbol of agricultural modernization, and it is also an important construction task for the development of modern agriculture in China. Xu Junyi said that although China has introduced a large number of advanced technologies, products and concepts from the Netherlands in recent years, China's?horticulture has not completed the nearly 100-year history of the Netherlands in a few years as people imagined. Relatively speaking, the development of?horticulture in the Netherlands is clear, and we can find logical relationships from the changes in their market, society, government and planting needs. For example, how the Netherlands has progressed from soil cultivation to soilless cultivation, and then to the use of cultivation troughs, so as to customize a characteristic development route belonging to China.

In addition, Xu Junyi believes that China's?horticulture is now in a transitional period, and the overall development is towards large-scale industrialization, so it is a golden age to enter facility agriculture. According to statistics compiled by 35 Dou, there will be 13 investment and financing events in foreign?horticulture in 2021, with a total financing of US$584 million. At the same time, there are many Dutch investment companies, which shows that large capital is entering this industry, which fully shows the industry trend of facility agriculture. However, there is a certain gap between China's current investment in facilities and foreign countries, and the level of facilities needs to be improved. In the future, China's?horticulture will develop in the direction of low-carbon, energy-saving, and green environmental protection.

A number of high-quality projects cover the whole area of China

Xu Junyi said that introducing Meteor Systems into China and allowing international companies to develop locally in China is one of the initial challenges. The headquarters of Meteor Systems has given Xu Junyi a lot of room for development and supports. At this stage, Meteor Systems products are in high-end facilities. There is a high share of the agricultural market, including more than 10 national agricultural industrial parks.

Secondly, in the context of global carbon neutrality, Meteor Systems has also made corresponding achievements in technology research and development. It combines solar panels with fruit covers to use solar energy to provide energy for crops, reducing cost losses while achieving zero Carbon or even carbon-negative targets.

In the past 2021, due to the continuous ups and downs of the world epidemic, various fields are facing unprecedented challenges, as is China's facility agriculture, but Meteor Systems has still completed many excellent projects, including Shanghai, Henan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Gansu and other provinces and cities.

Xu Junyi gave us a detailed introduction to the flower project Baiyi base in Beiyuan Town, Linxia County, Gansu Province. The project is combined with the local poverty alleviation policy. In the process of adjusting the agricultural industry structure in Linxia County in recent years, by introducing the planting and cultivation technology of Meteor Systems, a large-scale intelligent flower greenhouse has been built, so that high-quality roses can bloom in the greenhouse and promote farmers. The project not only covered the Meteor Systems technology to the northwest of China, but also provided a large number of employment opportunities for local people and increased per capita income.

In addition, with the increasing pressure of diseases caused by viruses and fungi in greenhouse horticulture, growers need to perform intensive and thorough cleaning during the change of crop varieties. However, international laws and regulations and environmental protection requirements are constantly updated, and the use rate of corrosive cleaning agents is also increasing. Meteor Systems has developed a new steel gutter coating - the MS-120 coating to relieve the pressure on growers . This layer has been developed based on the latest knowledge in corrosion resistance and is more corrosion and scratch resistant.

When it comes to the company's vision, Xu Junyi expressed that Meteor Systems will increase promotion of new products in China, so that Chinese growers can get in touch with the new products and new designs developed by the headquarters in the Netherlands at the first time and help growers generate more sales.?