Controlled environment agriculture might not be the first thing that you will associate with Pakistani farmers, but nothing less is true. Grower Naeem Qazi was one of the first to build a greenhouse with a steerable climate. In order to learn the ins and outs of greenhouse cultivation he went all the way to Holland to follow a training course at GreenQ in The Hague. 
"Greenhouse growing is not something completely new to Pakistan", Naeem told us. "But greenhouse growing with the help of heating systems is something that has not had much practise yet. I was interested in this, because I wanted to improve the quality of my crops and fruit."
Naeem followed an intensive training course at GreenQ, a large commercial service provider in the field of cultivation and production related knowledge. They provided him with knowledge and practical information for cultivation in a controlled environment.
Nowadays Naeem is growing several kinds of vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers. "We market the vegetables on the local market." He is hoping for good prices, but he told us that the Pakistan market and retail is saturated with cheap produce coming from the massive open field production. But the quality of the open field produce is very bad, with very low shelf life, and full of pesticide residues. "We hope that consumers become more aware of their food and buy more greenhouse produce, for better prices."
Naeem's greenhouse is a poly house that is heated with the heat from a waste burner. "I built the system myself, it burns wood or any other waste. Thanks to the system I am able to maintain a good temperature inside the greenhouse. For example, last week the outside night temperature was around 0 to 1 degrees Celsius, and the night temperature inside was around 15 degrees Celsius. Thanks to the course at GreenQ in Holland I know what to do and how to steer the climate to get the best results."
For more information on GreenQ, please contact:
DLV Plant-GreenQ
Steven Madern, Marketing & Communications
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www.dlvplant.nl
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