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The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#51

Post by iagovar »

user5994461 wrote: post #25
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

It's not just the tomatoes. Everything in the UK supermarket is quite bad. It's a cultural thing I suppose.

But why? There's plenty of production in Portugal, Italy and Spain.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#52

Post by polskibus »

The food from the Netherlands is tasteless compared to Spanish or Italian in all seasons of the year, in the summer, all produce in Europe beats it.

High yields in a country that does not have record sunlight throughought entire year, can only be achieved by abusing chemicals in the process, faking natural conditions, etc. Low amount of natural sunlight can easily be tested using your taste buds.

If their farmer switch to other varieties, without slowing down and reducing the yields, they will still harvest tasteless produce in comparison to other countries that have better conditions or "slower" production.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#53

Post by mcv »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

Netherland is quite famous for its ability to grow completely tasteless vegetables. After WW2, people didn't consider taste very important; only appearance, size, cost, and maybe nutritional value mattered, so lots of tasteless vegetables were bred.

Eventually customers started revolting, and now there are plenty of very tasty tomatoes available. They're more expensive, though, and not everybody can afford them. To a lot of people, cost is still a factor. And maybe even more so for export.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#54

Post by ars »

You can do some amazing things with enough energy! And the Netherlands have a lot of extra energy because of all the geothermal energy they get.

This is not [yet] replicable to other places though.

Hopefully soon - unlimited energy would utterly change the world.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#55

Post by cirrus-clouds »

user5994461 wrote: post #25
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

It's not just the tomatoes. Everything in the UK supermarket is quite bad. It's a cultural thing I suppose.

Our cuisine and diet has a poor reputation, but I think some of our actual produce (vegetable and dairy) is not so bad. We don't have the warm or sunny climate for flavoursome tomatoes, but root vegetables grown here can be fine.

It's also common for cows to graze outside for part of the day (true of Ireland and Sweden too). It's subjective, but I think it makes for much nicer tasting fresh milk (compared to the UHT variety that is more of the norm in other European countries).

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#56

Post by ardit33 »

johansch wrote: post #13
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

In Sweden we tend to get e.g. tomatoes from the Netherlands, Spain and Morocco. From a consumer perspective it seems random - the price doesn't really factor in at all. Tomatoes from the Netherlands are almost always tasteless. Tomatoes from Spain are often tasty, but sometimes tasteless. Tomatoes from Morocco are sometimes tasteless and sometimes horrible. So I look for Tomatoes grown in Spain and wish for the best.…

Italian, or Albanian tomatoes are the best. You guys live so up-north, that it takes a long time for tomatoes to get there so you are most likely going to get shipped the 1. Tasteless type, that happens to resist longer on shelves, or 2. Unripped tomatoes that get ripened on the way there.

There is a huge difference in taste between in vine ripped tomatoes and the one they are picked up still green.

The northeast US has the same problem. Tomatoes in California are usually pretty good, tomatoes in Boston taste like crap. (the joke is that Boston is the last stop for a tomato truck, before they get thrown in the ocean as trash).

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#57

Post by zappo2938 »

polskibus wrote: post #52

The food from the Netherlands is tasteless compared to Spanish or Italian in all seasons of the year, in the summer, all produce in Europe beats it. High yields in a country that does not have record sunlight throughought entire year, can only be achieved by abusing chemicals in the process, faking natural conditions, etc. Low amount of natural sunlight can easily be tested using your taste buds. If their farmer swit…

You sound like every French, Spanish, and Italian chef I've worked for.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#58

Post by tuyguntn »

Really interesting, are there any resources I can read about techniques used in Netherlands agriculture industry.

I have 5 ha (1 ha = 10.000 m2) land in my home country, but I do not know how to use it, even for what I can use. I will be really glad if someone points out me profitable/most profitable things for this land.

(I am from Central Asia, traveling and working abroad)

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#59

Post by stingraycharles »

farnsworth wrote: post #41

The Netherlands will soon be a massive exporter of flood-control knowledge and technology as well. It's like they've been practicing for global warming for the entire lifetime of their country.

Well we "foolishly" decided to build half our country below sea level. We've seen this interest in the past in the afterwake of Katrina, and we've been exporting this knowledge for quite some time. Unfortunately, it's probably a difficult problem to solve on the massive scale the US needs.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#60

Post by iagovar »

johansch wrote: post #13
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #10

Here in the UK, tomatoes from the Netherlands are the most common sold in British supermarkets. Unfortunately, they are quite flavourless. The type of tomato (and price) makes no difference (organic, vine-ripened, salad). Most of them are usually semi-ripe. Even if you allow them to ripen at home for a few days, they are still quite tasteless. Presumably, Italy keeps its best tomato produce for themselves and I don't…

In Sweden we tend to get e.g. tomatoes from the Netherlands, Spain and Morocco. From a consumer perspective it seems random - the price doesn't really factor in at all. Tomatoes from the Netherlands are almost always tasteless. Tomatoes from Spain are often tasty, but sometimes tasteless. Tomatoes from Morocco are sometimes tasteless and sometimes horrible. So I look for Tomatoes grown in Spain and wish for the best.…

Do they tell you from which region?
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