<p>This is a story worth telling. As the former President of the Mexican Protected Agriculture Grower Association, I have come to know the industry very well.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>Protected agriculture is an activity that has been proven to be highly effective and profitable in Mexico. Today it has gained worldwide leadership and recognition in the production of tomatoes and other vegetables, and still is an exceedingly young industry.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>This documented history on this subject is relatively recent, dating back only 15 years or so as a formal and large scale industry. In actuality, protected agriculture dates back nearly 60 years when it first emerged in this country. Food for thought…the first type of greenhouse structures appeared in the late 50's when the Mayor in charge of the Mexican Capital decided to install a few operations, for the production of ornamental plants and flowers with the purpose of decorating ridges, traffic circles and green areas in the immense metropolis. </p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>By the 70’s, other structure types were introduced into the Mexican territory helping to grow the floriculture industry in the central part of the country while focusing on domestic markets. By the mid 80s, others had also installed hothouses for the production of seedlings that would later be transplanted to open fields for larger scale production of tomatoes mainly in the states of Sinaloa and Sonora.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>It wasn’t really until the 90’s when technologies, mostly European, were installed in Mexico for complete cycles of vegetable production in large scale for export markets. It was during this time that the midwest and northeast of Mexico began the production of tomatoes in controlled atmosphere conditions, for the purpose of exporting to the United States and Canada.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>This part of history is quite interesting, because at the end of 1997, only 3 years after the NAFTA trade agreement was signed, less than 2000 acres of protected agriculture existed in the entire country. Today, approximately 56,000 acres exist in the country. </p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p>Find out the challenges, crises and successes of Mexico’s growth in protected agriculture in part 2 “The Learning Curve” of this 3 part series.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
