EL PAÍS offers the América Futura section for its daily and global informative contribution to sustainable development. If you would like to support our journalism, subscribe here.
“In this country sterility is spreading like a veritable curse.” This is what the Englishman Charles Darwin wrote about Argentine Patagonia in his famous book “Diary of a Naturalist’s Voyage Around the World”, published in 1839, with notes on the flora, Fauna and geology of the place. The scientist’s sentence sounds like a harsh judgment for the country’s most sparsely populated region, where the population density is just 2.2 people per square kilometer.
Food production is no easy task during the cold winters of Ushuaia, the city in Tierra del Fuego province known in tourism as “the southernmost in the world”. Night time lows can reach -10°C, there are few hours of natural light, snowfall and strong winds.
The vast majority of kitchens are supplied with groceries arriving by truck – and to a lesser extent by air – to suppliers in the city, with logistics taking anywhere from three to five days. The products come from Buenos Aires and other places in Patagonia, weather conditions permitting. The supply of vegetables and greens is particularly delicate due to the climate.
To offer its passengers an alternative to go green when shopping and minimize their carbon footprint, Hotel Los Cauquenes has opened a greenhouse where employees grow aromatic herbs and some vegetables. These products are part of the restaurant’s public menu. The initiative was launched last year after several years of experimentation and good results in a seasonal open-air orchard.
The Greenhouse.Rogelio Espinosa (Courtesy)
“The open garden only lasted a few months. So we started thinking about the possibility of a greenhouse, with the idea of protecting and increasing production to enhance the gastronomic experience. We try to produce our own food. We will not meet all the needs of vegetables, but we will work with our economy and our district,” says Natalia Tello, the hotel’s operations manager and one of the project’s mentors.
The idea was implemented with technical advice from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA). With them, they made plans, thought about the project and found the most suitable site to shelter it from the wind.
“Distance and weather are crucial factors in production. Some foreign guests tell us: “How few types of fruit they have!” Perhaps because they are not so juicy and the products are concentrated. We depend on the ability to deliver and the continuity of our suppliers. In addition to the quality that we achieve with the installation of the greenhouse, we produce food without the use of chemical products,” adds Tello.
Haydee Paredes makes the compost for the greenhouse floor. Rogelio Espinosa (Courtesy)
The greenhouse was built on a plot of land where a hut used to stand. The aromatic ones were chosen for space reasons. “It is a hotel for 100 passengers. The idea is to add more ships over time to be self-sufficient. The awareness of the protection of the environment began in Ushuaia with the arrival of tourism. This has always been a fit for purpose city, building everything from a naval base to a prison. It was a place without plants,” says Cristian Zaefferer, President of Los Cauquenes.
Over time, the greenhouse idea grew and began to bear fruit: thyme, oregano, sage, chives, mint, spring onions and rosemary. They also experimented with spinach, arugula, and baby potatoes, which were the hotel’s big stars. This small production makes a big difference and always delivers fresh produce, which the hotel kitchen staff appreciate.
The potatoes harvested in the hotel greenhouse.Rogelio Espinosa (Courtesy)
“It’s a lot to consume in the hotel from a small greenhouse. It allows us to decorate the dishes, use the flowers and demonstrate that food can be made. We can proudly tell our guests that the chives come from our greenhouse, as do the potatoes that accompany the dishes. They weren’t purchased from the supplier and they weren’t heated,” says Haydee Paredes, the hotel’s executive chef.
The idea of his gastronomic proposal is to add more and more local ingredients in addition to those produced in the greenhouse. “We change the restaurant’s menu every six months with a proposal to strengthen local products. I like the cuisine that conveys from the first bite. For our lamb casserole, for example, we smoke with lenga, a tree called Tierra del Fuego oak. The idea is to be part of the entire production chain. In addition to quality, we do not use any chemical products and with the greenhouse we have immediate availability and continuity,” added Paredes of the restaurant, which has a capacity for 70 guests.
Although Los Cauquenes is the first hotel in Ushuaia to have a greenhouse installed, INTA estimates there are around 60 vegetable growers in the area who work with an institution’s program called ProHuerta to promote food security and sovereignty in the country. They achieve this through training and the supply of seeds and other biological inputs.
Paredes harvests radishes in the greenhouse. Rogelio Espinosa (Courtesy)
“We rely heavily on the continent to provide us with fresh fruit and vegetables. We promote the local product and its added value, such as Santa Cruz purple garlic, but we cannot claim to have the same crops grown in the rest of the country. A plant needs at least seven hours of light to produce, which we don’t have here in the winter months. We encourage intensive orchards that produce a surplus that can be used for canning and freezing [congelar] or eat dried. This preserves the quality of the product throughout the winter,” explains Susana Aressi, a nod to INTA Tierra del Fuego’s ProHuerta program.
Although the greenhouses are good private initiatives, Aressi says the method is expensive. He also believes that the state should create more incentives for production aimed at small local producers. “With the current food production, we do not even reach 0.1% of the demand that exists on the Tierra del Fuego market. “The extraction of raw materials should be promoted from the local or provincial area in order to be able to reach the market more powerfully and with higher quality,” he argued.
Aressi cites other productive ventures beyond reduced horticultural production. And he is enthusiastic about the companies that are building their brands in this city on the other side of the continent. His words somewhat contradict Darwin’s about the poverty of these countries. “There are people from other areas who think that nothing can be produced here. We proudly do it at the same level as the rest of the country.”
Haydee Paredes, Executive Chef, garnishes one of the restaurant’s dishes. Rogelio Espinosa (Courtesy)