by Technological innovation and indigenous tradition can go hand in hand and provide a better quality of life to children and adults in Mapuche communities —who live in rural areas— and at the same time strengthen their traditions. This is the objective of the “smart greenhouse” installed in the José Painecura Hueñalihuen community, with the support of scientific researchers from the University of Chile and the University of La Frontera.
Located 50 kilometers from the coast in the Araucanía region, in southern Chile, with the Pacific Ocean, fresh air and high hills as neighbors, the José Painecura Hueñalihuen Mapuche community is home to approximately 120 people (children, youth and adults) who identify themselves as “lafkenches”, which means, “people of the sea”. This community is mainly dedicated to tourism, collecting seaweed and shellfish and selling vegetables.
The symptoms of the climate crisis are not foreign to such southern places where nature is still preserved. In the case of the Araucanía or Wallmapu region, as the Mapuche call the territory they inhabit, desertification and land degradation are advancing rapidly due to the scarcity and decrease in rainfall caused by climate change.
“One of the consequences of desertification is water scarcity, which is further complicated in rural areas when water from a pit or underground aquifer is used, on which various families in a community depend on for their consumption, so the adequate management of the available water volume becomes imperative,” explains Daniela Lasso, an electrical civil engineer from the University of Chile, in her research.
And just as the climate changes little by little, the people who inhabit these territories also resent the “to live far away.” The latter is named several times as the most difficult thing about living in this rural community. Added to this obstacle is the fact that access to water for domestic use and agricultural work is expensive, since as Daniela Lasso points out in her research, water is extracted from wells by using electric pumps.
In this context, access to electricity for Mapuche families is intermittent, since the community spends “on average 35 days a year without electricity.” This is indicated by Doris Sáez Hueichapan, an academic from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Chile, who adds: “The Internet, which represents connectivity for families, is also an intermittent service.”
Smart greenhouse: efficiency and ancestral knowledge
One of the traditional economic activities of the Mapuche people is the sale of vegetables. This is where the importance of having a smart greenhouse comes from, because they need a closed, covered and equipped area to grow fruits and vegetables for the community.
With the aim of supporting agricultural production and, in addition, carrying out scientific and technological research, academics and students from the University of Chile and the University of La Frontera, interested in interculturality, started a project where, together with the José Painecura Hueñalihuen community, and directors and teachers from nearby public schools, they have installed three greenhouses supplied by solar energy and monitored via the Internet.
The goal? To use energy and water more efficiently and to maintain the conditions of the plants in the greenhouses. Before the implementation of the smart greenhouses, the agricultural habits of the community were, in the case of Mr. Ermes García Huenchuñir (owner of one of the three greenhouses), to water every day for 10 minutes (throughout the year). This, without knowing the exact volume of water he used. In summer, when “Antü” (Sun in Mapudungun) beats down hard in the area, Mr. Ermes left the door and windows of the greenhouse open. On the contrary, in winter he left the doors and windows closed.
In this context, the researchers proposed to the community that having control over irrigation, temperature and humidity in the greenhouse would make the economic activity of several families more efficient. In the case of García Huenchuñir, he could grow tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, Italian squash and cucumbers more efficiently, and thus sell and consume them with his wife and two daughters.
“Low-cost technology was installed to automate the greenhouse, install humidity sensors to know when to water and optimize the water issue as much as possible due to the water shortage present in the region. Energy, water and food have a very close relationship,” explains academic Sáez.
To achieve this, the smart greenhouse used a weather station and a central controller, which are powered by a solar panel and which together form an Internet of Things (IoT) system that can be monitored and controlled remotely. The implementation of this control system in the greenhouse is composed of an anemometer (a device used to measure wind speed), air and soil humidity sensors, as well as water controls for irrigation.
“The implementation of this system includes a software that can be controlled through a web page that allows viewing data and interacting with the solenoid valves and windows of the greenhouse,” explains Oscar Poblete, an electrical engineering student about to graduate, who along with his classmate Oscar Villagra are in charge of implementing the project.
“It should be noted that this project is made respecting the culture of the place and the relationship with nature, something that is very important for the Mapuche people,” explains Saéz. She states this because in some areas where the Mapuche people live in southern Chile, there is a long history of “technical solutions”, for example, hydroelectric plants that have caused discord and controversy between the communities, the government and the private companies.
“It is important to be able to implement this solution in the communities, precisely because there are private companies that have destroyed ecosystems or sacred places for the communities. In this context, we, for example, do not even try to manipulate the greenhouse, wich means, make holes in it or break it to install something. Every step is made with care,” adds Poblete.
Installation difficulties: a small solar panel
Despite all the benefits of a smart greenhouse powered by solar panels, its implementation has had difficulties and limitations. Months after its implementation and after using it to plant vegetables, the automated irrigation hoses in the greenhouse stopped working. “It seems that the solar panel is too small and does not have the capacity needed for the greenhouse… the solar panel needs a little more volume,” explains García Huenchuñir, the owner of the greenhouse. And he adds: “At the times when I want to use it, for example, and it is cloudy, the battery of the automatic irrigation system is low and is not enough to operate the irrigation.”
According to García Huenchuñir, the greenhouse has a certain organization: “We used to water the plants at certain hours in the afternoon – he points to the soil – so the plants would have better strength. And in that section, when it was installed, it worked really well. The automatic aspect of the technology worked really well. But later, as I was saying, the power started to go down and there was no strength to water the plants. And then we had to work manually, as I always did.”
Consulted about the possibility of expanding the benefits of this solution, Mr. Hermes responds that the solar panels could supply electricity to houses in the community, or the automation of the irrigation could be applied to potato or wheat crops. “That would be a very good projection for the future, if there was the opportunity for someone to advise us on that subject,” he indicates and adds: “Everything that one plants would give much better results.”
Smart greenhouses: educational incentive
Very close to the Mapuche community José Painecura Hueñalihuen, the public elementary school “Bajo Yupehue”, which means “Place of hedgehogs” in Mapuzugun, is located and serves the indigenous communities José Huenchuñir, Manuel Epullán and José Painecura.
During 2022, the school installed a smart greenhouse with the help of academics and students from the University of Chile and the University of La Frontera under the leadership of the director of the establishment, Jorge Henríquez Castillo, Professor Cristian Carrillo and traditional educator Miriam Llancapan. The objective is for children to be able to learn about technology, but also to strengthen their tradition and culture, as medicinal herbs will also be planted.
“I think the most important thing about this greenhouse is to encourage children because the school’s educational project is for students to continue studying. Being here in the countryside, sometimes it is difficult for them to visualize that there is another world that is technological, beyond social networks. But the fact that they manipulate things here and interact with them… This is the main objective of this smart greenhouse, because due to its resources it is difficult for them to see the installation of an irrigation system. But they can study it, right? Become professionals. That is the vision and it is in the mission of the school, that children continue studying. And in fact, they all go out to study,” explains Henríquez.
“The greenhouse is not only an example of how to better manage resources (water and electricity), but it is also an opportunity for seventh and eighth grade students at the schools to be educated in software, water and energy management, and meteorological concepts. The idea of the School’s teachers and the academics involved in the project is that the students and members of the community awaken their curiosity, encourage them to go to university, but also that they apply their knowledge in their territories of origin to support their communities,” says Sáez.
Although the project has had some limitations, such as the lack of energy capacity, it has meant saving time and money on energy for its beneficiaries. This is how García Huenchuñir expresses it: “Before they installed the solar panel, I paid between 70 and 80 thousand pesos (80 USD) in electricity to operate the water pump. Today we are saving much more (I pay around 10 thousand pesos(10 USD)). When they brought this project, it seemed good to me because it is something that was useful for me and an economy in terms of energy. In addition, it supplies me with water for the pump. Saving time and energy. As well as in terms of irrigation, in terms of bringing water to improve the greenhouse, the plants, for irrigation, all that.”
Both the Mapuche community and academics and researchers hope that in the future, smart greenhouses and solar panels with more energy capacity for the entire community can be implemented. This raises a question: How scalable are sustainable solutions?
Juan Ignacio Huircan Quilaqueo, an academic from the Universidad de La Frontera who collaborates on the project, says: “Sustainability is expensive because you have to pay for it and once it is financed, the benefits may not be immediate. It is a bit like eating healthy. However, by implementing a project that is sustainable, it means that, in some way and in the long term, the beneficiaries will have equal opportunities in relation to certain things.”
He also reflects on intercultural work: “One can come from the Western world to introduce technology into a place where the society of that place operates under other rules and variables that are not as tangible elements as engineering, numbers or equations.”
He adds: “One has to think about what is pressing on the community. What do you do when you arrive in a community? If you are not from the community, you can produce an invasive effect. Then you have to question the impact of your actions. For example, if I have planned, from a geographical point of view, to install a series of equipment in different places, because I saw it on the map. And they tell you: “No, well” you can’t go there because there is water or because there are trees. ’There is a cultural issue that you cannot arrive and enter a community and change things. Sometimes a certain world tries to absorb and override another world, and that, without thinking that the laws, the rules that govern the other world, are also perfectly valid. And sometimes I think that this way of life is also sustainable,” he concludes.
*This article is part of the “Fair Energy Solutions” program by Climate Tracker and Open Society Foundation
Marta Apablaza Riquelme is a freelance science journalist based in Santiago, Chile
