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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

#61

Post by mverwijs »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #39

I am from the Netherlands and I have to say that regretably a large part of our country thinks that our farmers are incompetent, stupid, nature-hating animal bashers because of how the media treats them. It's gross how strong the lobby is against our farmers, even though they're clearly among the most competent, intelligent, sustainable farmers around the world. They always use cherry-picked facts (and even blatant l…

From the article: " This high-tech broiler house holds up to 150,000 birds, from hatching to harvesting"

No 'decades old photo' either. I find it hard to believe someone loving live animals would put them in such a place.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#62

Post by kogepathic »

novalis78 wrote: post #28

Makes me wonder how much of this could be replicated and what it would yield in states (Florida) with amazing sunshine and access to fresh water and cheap power.

> in states (Florida) with amazing sunshine and access to fresh water and cheap power.

Actually the model would work better in states with less arable land or with a colder climate.

Reasons:

1. Better food security, less reliance on imported food

2. As the article states, water use is much lower than open field farming, so it's better for places with constrained resources

3. More environmental if the food is grown closer to the consumers as there's less need for storage and transport. Similar to #1

4. Sunshine doesn't really matter for these greenhouses since a lot of them are using LED lights tuned to the species they're growing to increase output. [0]

[0] https://www.verticalfarmingconference.com/indoor-farming/jap...

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#63

Post by switch007 »

iagovar wrote: post #51
user5994461 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can find plenty of southern Spanish produce in greengrocers (it's usually so ripe it's nearly about to go off). Works OK if you want to eat it immediately.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#64

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#65

Post by Brakenshire »

maxerickson wrote: post #27
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…

The problem with tomatoes is that if you pick them ripe they are fragile. So if they are picked ripe, it makes it more difficult to ship them. And then this gets exacerbated when the varieties are selected for shipping and shelf life rather than flavor.

Dutch companies actually grow a lot of tomatoes inside the UK, in greenhouse conditions.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#66

Post by polskibus »

zappo2938 wrote: post #57
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.

I'm actually a casual Polish consumer. While we get similar amount of sun as the Dutch do, our produce is much better in the summer than theirs.

Poland has lower yields, we have much more land than they do (lower pressure for efficiency), being a bit backwards to the Western Europe actually results in better food.

In early Spring and late Autumn, I'd always pick imported French or Spanish produce over Dutch.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#67

Post by Eyght »

edwinjm wrote: post #37
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…

Dutch farmers recognised this and focused on new/other kinds of tomatoes with much better taste like cherry tomatoes and vine tomatoes.

I've been buying what they call "Plum Tomatoes" and they are much better than anything else I can get here in Sweden. Technically I think they are Grape Tomatoes, as they are quite small.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#68

Post by aaronbrethorst »

agiamas wrote: post #16
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…

Coming from the southern part of Europe, here in the UK groceries (save for Whole Foods 5pounds a bite..) are almost always tasteless. Except for the apricots at the Turkish deli down the street. I don't know where he gets them from, they are the best apricots I've ever had by far =)

Turkey, perhaps, seeing how they are the biggest producer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apricot#/media/File:2012aprico...

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#69

Post by spiderfarmer »

mverwijs wrote: post #61
spiderfarmer wrote: post #39

I am from the Netherlands and I have to say that regretably a large part of our country thinks that our farmers are incompetent, stupid, nature-hating animal bashers because of how the media treats them. It's gross how strong the lobby is against our farmers, even though they're clearly among the most competent, intelligent, sustainable farmers around the world. They always use cherry-picked facts (and even blatant l…

From the article: " This high-tech broiler house holds up to 150,000 birds, from hatching to harvesting" No 'decades old photo' either. I find it hard to believe someone loving live animals would put them in such a place.

These 150.000 birds are getting much better care from this single farmer than when they were spread over 10.000 households like they were 100 years ago.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#70

Post by raugustinus »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #39

I am from the Netherlands and I have to say that regretably a large part of our country thinks that our farmers are incompetent, stupid, nature-hating animal bashers because of how the media treats them. It's gross how strong the lobby is against our farmers, even though they're clearly among the most competent, intelligent, sustainable farmers around the world. They always use cherry-picked facts (and even blatant l…

Calling modern farmers most competent , intelligent, sustainable is an interesting point of view. Agreed it's very hard to blame the farmers because few would survive not scaling out in the current system. Farming tech is far from sustainable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsoil#Erosion

And vertical farming, hydroponics is cool tech and RGB LED's are cool to increase size, weight etc for increased profits. None of that has a positive influence on sustainability.

There a new phenomenon btw called Herenboeren, http://www.herenboeren.nl/, basically crowdfunding, for farmers. This is getting quite some attention. This at least gives me the impression that there's a bigger part of our country starting to see otherwise.

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