Tomatoes - Benfica do Ribatejo, Portugal
Introduction
José Augusto Santos Castanheira farms 40 hectares of tomatoes at Benfica do Ribatejo, Almeirim, Portugal. His father has always grown tomatoes and originally started growing with only 1 hectare, without any mechanisation, using flood irrigation and manual harvesting. Today, the farm has 2 harvesting machines and covers 40 hectares.
José is integrated in a Producer/Growers Organisation (Hortofruticolas Campelos) which provides technical assistance for the different crops that he grows. This organisation has 46 different growers, with a total area of 1,500 hectares of crops such as tomato, carrot, potato, pepper, broccoli and peas.