This document summarizes the perspective of a small privately-owned soil testing laboratory in Portugal. The laboratory was founded in 2007 and is located in Guimarães, Portugal. It currently has 8 employees and tests soil, water, and plant samples. Most farms in Portugal are small, with over 50% being less than 5 hectares. There are too many soil testing laboratories for the number of farms in Portugal, leading to unfair competition between private and university-run laboratories. The document calls for help from GLOSOLAN in areas like educating farmers, addressing unfair business practices, international accreditation, and developing shared software for reporting results.

1. A Small Fish in a Small Sea – The
Perspective of a Private Soil Testing
Laboratory in Portugal
Alan Evans
A2 Análises Químicas, Portugal

2. The Laboratory
• Privately owned
• Founded in 2007
• Localized in Guimarães which is in Northern
Portugal
• Started with 2 workers and currently has 8 workers
• Carries out analysis of soil, vegetable matter,
irrigation water, growing media, soil improvers
among other things
• Working on accreditation

3. Farming in Portugal
• According to the Portuguese Bureau of Statistics
(Instituto Nacional de Estatistica) as of 2016 there
were:
• 258,983 farms of which:
• 131,421 were solely dedicated to the production of
arable crops. (Approximately 50%)
• Solely cattle farms (Approximately 28%)
• Mixture of cattle and crops (Approximately 22%)

4. Approximate areas of farms
Farm area (ha) Number of farms % of total
< 1 ha 49301 19,0
1 to < 5 ha 135827 52,5
5 to < 20 ha 49942 19,3
20 to < 50 ha 12999 5,0
50 to < 100 ha 4697 1,8
100 to < 500 ha 5159 2,0
500 - < 1000 ha 798 0,3
> 1000 ha 261 0,1

5. Laboratories in Portugal –
Approximate state of affairs
• 4 small privately owned laboratories
• 17 colleges with farming courses
• 14 universities with farming courses
• 1 State owned laboratory
• 3 International laboratories (represented in Portugal)
• 2 laboratories associated with fertilizer companies

6. Problems in Portugal
• Too many laboratories for the number of farmers. All
thing being equal each laboratory could receive
samples from about 6000 farms each.
• Lack of education about the usefulness of soil analysis
• Government rules can dissuade people from
performing regular soil analysis.
• Unfair competition – University run laboratories use
state and European grants to buy equipment for
“Research” purposes but then provide this service at a
cost to farmers. By paying taxes the privately owned
laboratories subsidise their own competitors

7. Problems in Portugal
• Accreditation is extremely expensive
• Accreditation assessors in Portugal do not have
specific experience in soil analysis. They are mainly
experienced in water and food anaylsis.
• Lack of software for reporting soil analysis results.
Maybe an international problem???

8. How can GLOSOLAN help?
• Provide resources (Posters/Flyers… etc) to help us
educate farmers about the usefulness of soil
analysis.
• Provide help to eliminate unfair business practices
such as the use of equipment for research being
used to analyse paid samples.
• Have trained assessors to be used for international
laboratory accreditation.
• Develop a software program/database that all soils
labs can use to store and report results…
harmonisation.

9. Thank you for your attention
Alan Evans Ph.D B.Sc.(Hons) Chemistry
Laboratory Manager
alan@a2analisesquimicas.com
A2 Analises Químicas
Avepark – Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia
Edifício Spinpark
4805-017 Barco
Guimarães
PORTUGAL