Greenhouse production and postharvest: sustainable emerging technology
Fabio Mencarelli
Department for Biological, Agrofood, and Forest Innovations, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
Italy is a Country where the technological innovation in horticultural crop production and postharvest is a priority. In fact, the strong competition in Europe and the need of export has driven the research and the company to find the way to produce high quality products and to develop unique technology for handling, storage, shipping, and processing. In this talk, the innovative technique in greenhouse building but overall the great advance in postharvest technology will be dealt also touching the aspect of sustainability. Greenhouse sector has found a new development with the ICT, in fact the new greenhouses are mainly censored for irrigation mapping and illumination in order to make the production economically and environmentally sustainable. Postharvest also has improved its technology with a look to sustainability. Innovations in cooling to improve the cooling efficiency, innovation in insulation of storage room to have less heat leaking, improved efficiency of handling lines to have less waste, new sensors for quality control to guarantee the consumer. Today energy coefficient is mandatory to check the efficiency of cooling plant. Finally, oversea shipping has seen to give more attention to reduction of ship hull friction or to favour the ship speed of the huge container ships.