Environmental research

The Community Based Solar Cooled Greenhouse Research Project focuses on climate change mitigation within the agricultural sector via the development of community based renewable energy greenhouse demonstration sites within three communities across Barbados. The current project proposal seeks to highlight a possible solution to this on-going challenge facing PA farmers in the island of Barbados and the wider Caribbean through the development of an automated climate controlled greenhouse system which is fully powered by solar photovoltaic technology. The overall goal of the project is to successfully demonstrate that cultivation of hydroponically grown lettuce in a fully automated climate controlled greenhouse system produces higher yields and better quality produce in terms of shelf life and durability over a similar grown in passively ventilated (window vented) greenhouse. The objectives of the project are as follows: Development and demonstration of programming software which actively controls and regulates the internal environment of small to medium sized greenhouses, through real time responses to changes in temperature, humidity, light and CO2 levels. 2) Collection of practical data on the potential increases in yield, crop quality, durability and susceptibility to disease of hydroponically grown lettuce in a climate controlled greenhouse environment versus a similar crop grown in a passively cooled greenhouse. 3) Demonstration of the successful and cost effective use of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient devices to maintain consistent and reliable year round cultivation of lettuce in a climate controlled environment. Demonstrations will be set up in three communities and person from within the community will have an opportunity to engage directly with the project.The project team has started to build community acceptability and support; since both the project and the organization are new to the communities they sought to engage the community from the project conceptualization and development phase. Community members will be empowered with the requisite training and experience to operate and install their own Green House for commercial vegetable production. The of the low cost, high tech, environmentally sustainable and high yielding crop production systems could be produced and sold both locally and regionally. The expertise build in renewable energy and water harvesting for agricultural applications could be utilize by organization to provide these services to other organizations and agricultural enterprises.

Barbados