Key Takeaways
- We recently had the chance to sit down with Simon Jones, Sales Manager Horticulture Export at Genap.
- Genap is expanding globally to meet rising demand for high-quality water storage and controlled systems that prevent contamination and evaporation.
- Rainwater capture, recirculation, and closed storage solutions are becoming essential tools for greenhouse and open-field growers.
- Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa are among the fastest-growing markets due to acute water scarcity and food security priorities.
- Precision irrigation and integrated water management solutions remain critical for improving yield while reducing water use.
- By 2035, localized food production and advanced water management technologies will be central to global food security strategies.
Water security has rapidly become one of the defining challenges of modern horticulture. As climate volatility intensifies and global food demands rise, growers are rethinking how they store, recirculate, and safeguard water resources. Few have a closer view of this shift than Simon Jones, Sales Manager Horticulture Export at Genap, a Dutch water storage specialist with decades of experience across global agriculture and environmental infrastructure.
In a recent conversation with iGrow News, Jones reflected on the state of water storage technologies, the evolution of grower attitudes, and the critical role water security will play in shaping the next decade of greenhouse production.
Simon Jones' Career Built on Water Challenges
Jones brings nearly 25 years of experience in agriculture, horticulture, water storage, and waste management—roles that have placed him across continents and at the center of many of the world’s most pressing water issues. For the past nine years, he has led global sales at Genap, overseeing markets outside Holland, Germany, and Switzerland.
Genap operates four manufacturing centers—in the Netherlands, Canada, Mexico, Kenya, and India—supported by local commercial teams and over 60 distributors worldwide. The strategy, Jones explained, is intentional: “Our rationale behind this is to get closer to our customer… not only speaking the same language but speaking the same cultural language.”
This proximity allows Genap to respond quickly to evolving water challenges and tailor storage solutions to local climatic and agronomic realities.
From Tanks to Fully Controlled Water Systems
While commonly associated with tanks and reservoirs, Genap’s offering goes far deeper. Their systems are designed to give growers full control of every liter they store—preventing contamination, minimizing evaporation, and enabling nutrient recapture through recirculation.
“Our systems can completely close a storage unit,” Jones said. “Once you put clean water in, you get clean water out.”
These solutions range from woven polypropylene covers that reduce algae and evaporation to fully sealed reinforced PVC, PE and PP membranes used on both tanks and lagoons. The latter prevents any external water or debris—from seabird activity to local dust storms—from entering the system.
This focus on protection is increasingly important as more growers adopt rainwater capture and recirculating irrigation. Yet Jones emphasizes that storage alone is not enough. “The grower has to have monitoring equipment… adequate filtration, dosing, and cleaning regimes in place,” he noted, especially when water is returned into closed-loop systems.
Contamination risks—from E. coli to salmonella—remain a concern in open lagoons and improperly managed recirculation systems. That risk, Jones said, has pushed more growers to adopt closed storage solutions as standard practice.
A Changing Market: From Optional to Essential According To Simon Jones
Across Jones’ global portfolio, the shift in mindset around water is unmistakable.
He still encounters growers who treat water as an afterthought, but the broader trend is clear: recirculation, rainwater capture, and controlled storage are becoming essential components of profitable, resilient growing operations.
He explained this shift plainly:
“There used to be two things sure in life: paying too much tax and one day passing away. The third thing now is that we don’t have enough water storage.”
Beyond rising yield requirements, erratic rainfall patterns—from sudden flooding to prolonged dry spells—have changed how growers think about water as a strategic asset. Jones described climates across Europe, Latin America, and even traditionally wet regions like the UK experiencing increasingly unpredictable precipitation. When heavy rainfall does occur, growers need the ability to capture and store it immediately—an operational shift Genap has seen accelerate each year.
Where Demand Is Growing Fastest
Genap’s expansion into new manufacturing hubs has revealed strong demand wherever the company establishes a local presence. Europe and South America remain consistent markets, but Jones highlighted particularly rapid growth in the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa.
“There’s a huge drive toward food security,” he explained. “But without water security, you can’t have food security.”
Countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia face escalating salinity problems as groundwater becomes harder and more expensive to extract. At the same time, desalination—now common across the region—produces water that is costly to generate and requires careful storage to preserve quality.
This creates a strong incentive for growers and policymakers alike to invest in robust water infrastructure that minimizes losses across the supply chain.
Efficiency, Precision, and Collaboration: The Industry’s Next Step
When asked about the biggest near-term challenges for the sector, Jones pointed not to technology gaps but to execution.
“It’s making it happen,” he said. “Everybody says they’re doing this or that—but are they really?”
He argues that the industry must adopt a more holistic view of water use, combining storage, filtration, dosing, irrigation, and climate strategies into integrated systems. Precision irrigation—already widely discussed—still has significant untapped potential to improve yield consistency while reducing water use.
From Jones’ perspective, innovation must happen faster than regulation:
“Unless we innovate and learn to use water better, then somebody will tell us what we can and can’t do.”
Growers, he suggested, should take advantage of the wealth of expertise available across Dutch horticulture, where collaboration among suppliers—from pumps to filtration to dosing—is central to optimizing water systems.
Looking Ahead to 2035 For Simon Jones: Water as the Foundation of Local Food Security
In his “crystal ball” projection for the year 2035, Jones sees both Genap and the broader industry undergoing significant transformation.
Genap, he said, will be operating additional manufacturing units and offering “the highest quality of water storage systems and advice” to growers globally.
For the industry, he foresees advances in substrates, fertilizers, and overall water efficiency, all contributing to higher yields with fewer resources. Most importantly, he predicts a continued shift toward localized food production, reducing carbon miles and strengthening national food security strategies.
But none of that is possible, he emphasized, without water security:
“Countries need to become more food secure themselves, which in turn means water security. By then we should all be pulling in the same direction.”
