Hydroponic

OPPORTUNITIES

For Your Students

Today, hydroponics systems are being used to produce various greenhouse crops. Among the most popular crops to produce hydroponically are tomatoes and bell peppers. An example of this is the hydroponic tomato industry that is rapidly growing in Arizona.

According to a University of Arizona agriculture official, hydroponic tomato greenhouses are "a booming business that promises additional growth in the coming decade." The University is planning to spend $1 million to train UA students how to grow plants without soil. The assistant dean of the UA's College of Agriculture, Merle H. Jensen, says, "We have an industry that's rapidly becoming a major industry that in not too many years will be the number one commodity in all of Arizona." With the money being spent on the new hydroponics program at the University of Arizona, students will learn to seed, grow, pollinate, and fertilize hydroponic plants.

One tomato-producing company called Eurofresh has already said they are eager to employ some of these UA students who have skills a working knowledge of hydroponics. Right now, almost all of their employees are from Holland. Fried De Schouwer, the company's marketing manager, says that he would much rather hire American workers, but right now they just lack the expertise when compared to the Dutch.

Eurofresh built a ten-acre greenhouse near Bonita, Arizona, in 1992 to grow hydroponic tomatoes. One of the reasons hydroponics is so popular in Arizona is because of the winter sunshine that other states don't have. Also, it is a wonderful opportunity to provide year-round employment in rural areas where people are tired of seasonal jobs. The Eurofresh operation doubled to twenty acres, then forty, and now eighty within the last six years. Recently, the company purchased 450 acres and has plans for expansion in twenty-acre increments "as long as the market can bear it."

This is just one example of how hydroponics is rapidly growing in popularity. High school students should be given the opportunity to learn more about this industry as soon as possible, because it is likely that some of your students will be entering this field in the future. The number of opportunities is increasing.