Didi Qian has already lived in Wageningen for nearly twenty years. She was raised in a coastal province near Shanghai in China, where she earned her bachelor's with a major in horticulture. When she heard that the Netherlands was at the top in the field of horticulture, she decided to continue her studies in Wageningen. "When the teachers talked about high-tech horticulture, they always referred to the horticulture in the Netherlands as a good example. This made me curious about Dutch horticulture. Since Wageningen University is the top university to study horticulture, I decided to do my master's in Plant Sciences and Greenhouse Horticulture there."
Didi describes the work that she did at Delphy. "My task at Delphy was to find projects in the greenhouse industry in China and to support our consultants in improving the greenhouse business in China. I started working at Delphy before finishing my PhD thesis. In the end, I got my PhD degree when I was already working at Delphy for several years. I think the work was beneficial for both China and the Netherlands. China got knowledge from the Dutch consultants, and the Dutch consultants used Chinese greenhouse information and data to validate and improve their knowledge. I developed a strong business network in the greenhouse industry in both the Netherlands and China.
"However, after working at Delphy for 6 years, I felt that something had to change. The Dutch experts used their empirical experience for the greenhouse projects in other countries, and the greenhouse suppliers built Dutch Venlo greenhouses all over the world without considering climate conditions and other local factors. A very ridiculous example I've seen is in China, where a Venlo greenhouse was built in a subtropical ocean climate, which is very hot and humid. That greenhouse couldn't be operated at all because it was simply too hot and too humid inside."
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