Spain is the second country in the world with the largest greenhouse area

A total of 1.3 million hectares of the Earth's surface are covered by greenhouses for cultivation in 119 countries and Spain is the second country in the world ranking, only behind China. This is what nine researchers from institutions in China, Denmark, France and Sweden point out in a study published in the journal 'Nature Food'. Humanity has long become accustomed to enjoying tomatoes, cucumbers, berries and melons all year round. In Europe, most of these imports come from Spain, where millions of tons of fruits and vegetables are grown under seas of plastic that stretch across the south of the country. Global greenhouse cultivation is increasing rapidly, although most of this boom is occurring outside Europe, in low- and middle-income countries in the Global South. Thanks to a combination of deep learning algorithms and modern sources of satellite images, researchers mapped the amount of land used for greenhouse cultivation around the world. Their mapping shows that greenhouse ...