UC to develop an agriculture project in the driest desert

The project, developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the university, will last three years and will generate the bases to develop agriculture in the coastal desert of the Tarapacá, Antofagasta and Atacama regions.

In January, the Exploration Projects of the National Research and Development Agency (ANID) were announced , which included among its awards the research “Establishing the basis for the use of fog water as the main source for agricultural production across the Atacama desert” from the UC Atacama Desert Center (CDA UC).

This innovative project, which will generate the bases to develop agriculture in the coastal desert, will be led by Professor Francisco Albornoz , an academic from the UC Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering , and Camilo del Río , a professor from the UC Geography Institute.. All the participants in this initiative, both responsible academics and researchers, are members of the CDA, and their contributions are a clear example of interdiscipline within the University, since it brings together Geography, Agronomy and Engineering.

One of the characteristics of the Exploration Project is that it finances research that is novel and has transformative potential, among other requirements. These concepts apply to the project, because it will be supplied 100% with fog water and will use solar energy for all irrigation, pumping and air conditioning systems.

Camilo del Río, who recently assumed the direction of CDA UC, explained that the characteristics of the call for tenders prompted the team to apply: “We had been maturing the idea of ​​this project for a long time. We had participated in some calls and it had gone badly and probably for that very reason, because the others lacked that idea of ​​the innovative and disruptive. So, for the other funds this sounded too exploratory, and here that is precisely what was sought”.

It is that daring to cultivate in a territory with these characteristics is not easy “We believe that developing agriculture in the driest desert in the world, would position the region and Chile as a laboratory that allows identifying strategies and developing crops adapted to drought, offering alternatives to climate change that is generating a reduction in rainfall throughout the country,” said the project director, Francisco Albornoz.

“We believe that developing agriculture in the driest desert in the world would position the region and Chile as a laboratory that allows identifying strategies and developing crops adapted to drought” – Francisco Albornoz, UC Atacama Desert Center

Project stages
This initiative has a duration of 3 years and covers the regions of Tarapacá, Antofagasta and Atacama. Its main objective is to cultivate in the desert through greenhouses, irrigate with fog water and use solar energy: “We hope to start planning the installation of these greenhouses in March, and to have them installed in April,” explained Camilo del Río.

The researcher specified the 5 objectives of this project, dividing them into three stages: fog, agricultural productivity and governance:
1. Characterization of the volumes of collectable fog water from the network that we have been installing for some time. We have at least 10 stations and we want to install two or three more in certain areas.
2. Analyze the quality of the fog water: what minerals it has, what nutrients and how these nutrients vary in time and space. Samples of this fog water are going to be taken and characterized to find out how effective it is for the vegetables and species that we want to cultivate.
3. Model, based on the data from the first objective, along with satellite images and atmospheric data. Thus, we generate a model where we spatialize the potential of collectable water. So, for each territory of this coastal desert we are going to estimate the water that is needed.
4. Installation of two greenhouses, between 20 and 30 m2. One of them is installed in the Alto Patache station and the other in “Falda verde”, near the Pan de Azúcar National Park. In these greenhouses we are going to test which species we want to grow. There is a proposal around lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes. The expert, who is Francisco, is going to see, depending on the quality, which ones do best in these environments. At the same time, these greenhouses must be heated and that is where solar energy enters.
5. Governance. Here participates Professor Virginia Carter. She will look at land use, water resource management, and land ownership. Give all the administrative or governance feasibility so that tomorrow the use or generation of agricultural production in the desert is facilitated.
Since the environmental conditions in the desert are not conducive to cultivation, the temperature of the greenhouses, the air conditioning and the amount of energy needed to cool in summer and heat in winter will be monitored. The same applies to the amount of irrigation that is needed per square meter in the different species to be planted. “And at the same time next to these two sites, on the desert floor in 10 m2, we are going to see the possibility of producing wheat. Once again, Francisco is the expert, since there is a wheat adapted to desert conditions, that is, little organic matter”, added the professor.

Link with the environment
One of the items that the UC wants to promote in all its units is the link with the environment, which in this case translates as the transfer of knowledge and collaboration for and with the community. This is why the project targets neighboring communities: “We are investigating and thinking that tomorrow the local communities will take charge and can generate their own agricultural production and do not need anything,” stressed Professor Camilo Del Río.

“The idea is that they will be autonomous tomorrow. And that is why we incorporated the issue of governance, because it is precisely the regular normative channel of how we can transmit to the communities, local governments and eventually to private companies that, we hope, the volumes of water and the amount of energy will give plenty to give large agricultural productions”, he added.

New leadership at CDA
In November 2022, Professor Camilo del Río took over as the new director of the Atacama Desert Center (CDA UC), replacing Professor Juan Luis García. This Center’s mission is to carry out research in science and technology for the knowledge and integral development of the arid and semi-arid zones of the north of the country.

This project comes to inaugurate his new position in a forceful way, but the professor clarifies that the research has been maturing for some time: “It is right in my direction to have received the award, but more than good news for me it is excellent news for the CDA”.

“I want to emphasize that it is an interdisciplinary project almost manual, where the knowledge that is developed in geography without the knowledge of agronomy would not be possible. Without the issue of efficiency and engineering energy, it would be possible for us. Without the contribution of the chemistry of the coordinator of the Atacama Station, Constanza Vargas, it would not be possible either. There is a synergy from the vast majority of the disciplines that are part of the CDA,” she concluded.