Yorta is an agricultural company owned by Pedro Albuquerque and based in Caniço.
The young entrepreneur believes that “vertical farming – the use of aeroponic towers in greenhouses to allow more plants per square metre (m²) is the way forward-.
Currently, the site produces aromatic plants, basil, and micro greens. By using the towers they can grow around 90 plants per m2, ensuring their 300 m² greenhouses house approximately 9,800 plants.
“The idea is to give Madeira and the Madeirans a more focused agriculture based on their needs, states Pedro, who firmly believes that vertical agriculture is a way to circumvent the “very particular orography” of the island, and its dependence on imported food products. By his calculations, at least 70 – 80% of the island’s agricultural products come from abroad.”
Pedro Albuquerque has no doubts that aeroponics is a “good example of what we can and should do here in the Region to mitigate the constraints of agricultural production. Furthermore, it is a more sustainable, more profitable, and technologically advanced way of agriculture. It will also allow Madeira to be less dependent on imported foods.”
Miguel Albuquerque, who visited the greenhouses, took the opportunity to throw a bucket of cold water on the scheme by saying:
“Subsistence agriculture in Madeira is not something that is sustainable, nor even adaptable to today, despite those who make agricultural entrepreneurship a profitable activity.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
