Past, present and future of agricultural plastic in Brazil

The concept of protected cultivation in Brazil was imported from Europe, with the Portuguese royal family. The idea of protecting crops was effectively used, for the first time in Brazil, in coffee crop. Commercial plasticulture itself began only with the Japanese and Dutch settlers established in Brazil and that made use of the knowledge brought from their home countries. Mrs. Haruju Matsuoka began planting carnations in 1954, importing seedlings from Uruguay. She built the first flower greenhouse, 6.5 m wide by 60 m, long. In 1980 the first metal greenhouse was built, with plastic cover, in Brazil for the commercial cultivation of flowers in Holambra. In 1997 the Brazilian Committee for the Development and Application of Plastics in Agriculture (COBAPLA) was founded at Faculty of Agricultural Engineering of the State University of Campinas, São Paulo state. In 1996 the estimated area with greenhouses in Brazil was approximately of 2,400 ha. Currently, the greenhouses area in Brazil is around 30,000 ha. Despite the growth observed in the last 22 years, the sector growth could have been higher. This paper lists the main factors that constrain sector growth and presents possible scenarios.