Summary
Adoption of Technology in Mediterranean Horticultural Greenhouses

Most Spanish exports from intensive horticulture come from crops grown in greenhouses located in Almería, Murcia and Alicante, where the present study has been carried out. Today's competitive position is not seriously threatened; however, it not growing either. Exports and prices can stand up to competition from other Mediterranean countries with which Spain must compete in terms of capital and technology to raise the level of equipment in greenhouses. Faced with need to restructure existing facilities, which cannot be deferred, this Ph.D. dissertation sets out to establish the current state of technology and ongoing change and also the characteristics of farms and the attitudes of their owners with respect to the innovations required.
Information sources have been based on the price of tomatoes and peppers at source, as the main horticultural products, and a survey of 242 farms, using stratified random sampling proportional to the number of owners with horticultural greenhouses, in the areas of El Ejido (Almería), Valle Guadalentín and Campo de Cartagena (Murcia) and South of Alicante.
Data analysis was divided into a first part, devoted to pricing, calculating the trend and seasonality and the application of ARIMA models. The goal was to determine the time-course changes in farmers' incomes, make predictions, and establish a relationship between prices and adoptable technology.
Survey data processing and the results occupy most of the work. A one-way statistical analysis was applied to the structural characteristics of farms and greenhouses. A two-way analysis, with test for independence, was made to determine relationships of interest among factors influencing innovation processes. Cluster analysis was used to create technological levels characterized by their components and their percentage distribution. These groups have shed light on the ongoing changes in technology.
To analyze the attitude of the farm-owners with respect to soilless cultivation Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied. The importance assigned to variables in the surveys, concerning the advantages and drawbacks affecting the process, was evaluated by Ordinal Multinomial Regression (RMO).
The main conclusions drawn were: According to time-course changes in prices and exports, the competitive position of the tomato and pepper is not greatly threatened. However, there is certain stabilization, with market saturation and declining prices. Currently, the proportion of owners willing to modify their greenhouses is low, only 10% plan to do so immediately and 35% medium or long-term, the rest do not intend to make improvements. For soilless cultivation the growth margin is low. The proportion of greenhouses more fully equipped technologically represents only 6% of the total. Multi-tunnel structures, suitable for all kinds of improvements and equipment, only represent 11.2%. The number of heated greenhouses comprises 12% of the total sample. The most highly valued variable related to soilless cultivation was quality, to which more importance is given than income, followed by better application of irrigation. It attracts attention that priority is not given to soilless cultivation as a final solution to problems of soil disinfection. Although the population analyzed demonstrated environmental awareness, the importance they assigned to the variables related to environmental issues was secondary.