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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

#161

Post by 21 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #129
21 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, looking at the associated picture tells me a different story. Look at how uncrowded the chicks are and how much free space to move they have, and compare with US where they are so packed together that they can't even turn in place. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/magazine/right...

It seems strange to point out how well you are treating an animal when you are slaughtering it for consumption in the end. In fact that is the animal's only purpose of existence.

I think you look for purpose where there is little. What's the purpose of an animal living in the wild? Ecologists would say eat or be eaten, thrive, multiply.

From an evolutionary point of view you could say that cows, chickens, pigs (and cats, dogs, horses) are one of the most successful animals, exactly because we eat (or pet) them.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#162

Post by iagooar »

jacquesm wrote: post #73
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…

Quality has a price. If you buy the cheapest tomatoes you get the lowest grade, if you're prepared to spend more you get better quality and more taste. The Germans are extremely interesting in this respect deriding the lowest quality Dutch vegetables with all kinds of name-calling ('waterbombs') but at the same time they keep buying them because they are cheap. If you want quality you will simply have to be prepared…

Germans are not willing to pay money for food. They expect food to be cheap, they don't care too much about the quality of it (in general, of course). Germans sometimes joke about themselves that some of them will spend +1000€ for a barbecue without a problem, yet they'll put the cheapest 0.50€ sausages on it.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#163

Post by mcv »

jorams wrote: post #104
ars wrote: post #54

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.

Do you have more information on this geothermal energy? Clicking around here[1] suggests the Netherlands doesn't actually use much geothermal energy at all. [1]: https://www.geothermal-energy.org/direct_uses/netherlands.ht...

It's also news to me. Most of our energy still comes from coal and gas, I believe. I believe we were once ahead of the pack in wind energy, but the conservative politics of the past decade and a half has made us fall behind the rest of Europe in switching to sustainable energy.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#164

Post by iagooar »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #47
edwinjm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you compare a typical Dutch tomato to a supersized watermelon type tomato from California, the Dutch tomatoes are ten times more flavorful.

Ten times zero, is still zero ;)

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#165

Post by spiderfarmer »

rocqua wrote: post #159
spiderfarmer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This piece, from a foreign media outlet is the only positive story about Dutch agriculture I saw in nearly a month. The last one was about how little antibiotics we use compared to the rest of the world. Stories about how our farmers are bad? Missed the whole fipronil hype that completely unsubstantiated? Talk to a farmer. Ask him who speaks for him nowadays. The lobby is "doodgepoldert". There is none. Check how the…

I'd like a quote on the NPO there. That is a public non-partisan institution.

The links are quite clear and they are proudly advertising it.

https://www.nieuweoogst.nu/nieuws/2017/01/19/objectieve-jour...

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#166

Post by 21 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #139
spiderfarmer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I, like all my predecessors, am not yet 'evolved' enough to give up on eating meat. In the meantime I like the fact that the animals are growing up disease free in relatively humane conditions.

It's not about being evolved enough, whatever that means. Eating meat is a conscious choice. Humans can do without meat. We are omnivores, not carnivores. I mean yes, in the grand scheme of things, treating animals well before slaughtering them is better than treating them poorly, but it misses the forest for the trees.

I would be highly surprised if in 100 years we'll still do this.

It's only a matter of time until lab-grown meat is as good and cheap as the original, and then society will turn. Eating real animals will be something like hunting is now, a tiny thing and with huge image costs.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#167

Post by matthewmacleod »

user5994461 wrote: post #74
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't tell about your cuisine or what you produce, but what is in your supermarkets is very disappointing.

I think that’s just cultural conditioning. Many of the products found in continental supermarkets are equally disappointing for visitors from the UK :)

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#168

Post by [deleted] »

polskibus wrote: post #66
zappo2938 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#169

Post by Pica_soO »

sambe wrote: post #147
Pica_soO wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of taste is not a problem of when the fruit is shipped. Its a indicator for a lack of stress. The plant is not attacked by insects, fungi and deer. Thus it does not produce the aromatics we expect. Unfortunately, many people are okay with this and expect it. I honestly can not imagine Netherlands farmers and engineers unable to simulate that stress. So its a purely lack of customers knowing the difference.

Reference for this? Never heard of it before, and doesn't sound likely on the surface.

Waterstress: https://www.growingformarket.com/articles/Improve-tomato-fla...

Fungi-Symbosis: http://orgprints.org/12844/1/12844.pdf

But yes, i was wrong on the water tomato. They simply have been bred to look good and be transportable, disregarding taste.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#170

Post by matthewmacleod »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #106
oh_sigh wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the bird density. They aren't packed in there in the slightest. Have you studied chicken raising? Do you have a better system? Do you really love all live animals or just intellectually love them and feel empathy when one is mistreated?

For animal rights activists there is no acceptable way to keep an animal. They want to regulate farms until it's economically impossible to produce meat (from living animals). I get that, but in my view nature is brutal and I have no problem killing an animal for a nice BBQ. Who is closer to nature?

That’s a “no true Scotsman” argument if ever I’ve heard one!
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