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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

#281

Post by ido »

mseo wrote: post #257
ido wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Berlin and used to live in Vienna - I hear such jokes all the time, that Berliners will eat just about anything as long as it's cheap and won't immediately kill you. You don't have to go far to see the difference either: Austrians and south Germans are already much more "food-oriented" than north Germans, so this may be a regional thing rather than encompassing the whole country.

I live in Berlin, too. But I never heard someone joking about deliberately eating cheap and/or bad food. Who would do this anyway? I guess you're talking about various prejudices of others. But that's a whole other topic.

The joke isn't by Germans saying they eat cheap food but by other immigrants saying it about Berliners/Germans (i lived for a much longer in Austria and never heard this said about Austrians).

I think the locals wouldn't joke about themselves that way cause to them the way they are is just "normal".

And surely you've heard Berliners say that Berlin's local food tradition is the Döner (i.e. there is no "local food")? I guarantee you no Bavarian or Austrian would say that about their own food tradition.

(And BTW I have no ill will towards Berlin or Berliners, I think it's one of the best places in the world to live in)

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#282

Post by chewz »

jacquesm wrote: post #278
chewz wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I have grown up in Poland, in 70-ties and 80-ties. We were agricultural but poor country with communist economy. The meat - ham and sausage were rationed, so were sugar. Some of largest strikes in 1976 broke out when government attempted to raise the regulated price of sugar. My mom's salary equalled to 8 USD per month at black market exchange rates. But the quality of basic food stuff was amazing. The re…

> So how can one explain that the economy cannot deliver relatively cheap and tasty basic food products (at much higher profit margins as the consumers are now more wealthy and more health conscious) - a task that ineffective, communist economy fulfilled with relative ease. That's pretty simple: Poland is now importing a lot of stuff that it used to grow at home. And since Poland is not the wealthiest country it does…

Well market supposed to be self-regulating automata aiming at discovery of optimal price at maximum benefit to the consumers. And it is clearly not working like that - both price and quality benefits are nowhere to be fund.

Isn't over 30 years of market leveling enough in case of tomatoes? If the choice is between growing tasteless tomatoes or importing similarly tasteless tomatoes then I am under impression that market isn't working well in that case. At least not for a consumer.

If you are telling me that growing tasty tomatoes at large scale is absolutely impossible under capitalism then I will cry "Komuno wróć" :)

The article that started this discussion is about super modern technology used in farming. It reminds me of old joke about modern farming in USSR - they plow with tractors, they sow with airplanes and they watching bread on TV.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#283

Post by raarts »

jacquesm wrote: post #215
holografix wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this really interesting, where in the world would it be considered bad form to sniff a tomatoe before purchasing?

Well, here in NL it certainly would if you went through a crate of tomatoes at the local supermarket and smelled all of them one-by-one.

I live in Amsterdam but I always try how strawberries smell before buying. And in my experience they smell the same if they come from true same batch so I only need to try once.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#284

Post by vram22 »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #55
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.

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…

>We don't have the warm or sunny climate for flavoursome tomatoes

I'd read even as a kid, in English novels, that greenhouses were somewhat common in the UK. Do tomatoes not grow well even in greenhouses there?

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#285

Post by atmosx »

mark_edward wrote: post #212
atmosx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read Plato, Kant and Keynes. Possibly write new plays, enjoy wine and explore space?

The correct answer is most likely languish in poverty at the margins of society.

To depressing. I'd like to be positive and believe that in a many years from now we'll be able to reach a star-trek economy, hopefully before we reach that level of tech.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#286

Post by hwillis »

flomo wrote: post #230
hwillis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sewage drained into the river, which drained into the lake, which was where they got their fresh water, so they built a new river to reverse the original one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Sanitary_and_Ship_Cana... It's kind of amazing that such a poorly-formed plan didn't go catastrophically wrong, but it's worked okay for over a century.

Interesting. Clicking around from that link and found that the famous Chicago cholera outbreak was a myth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_1885_cholera_epidemic_...

although for the record that one is not the same as the one that killed 6% of the population, which happened in 1854.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#287

Post by pakitan »

abalone wrote: post #197

What’s the energy cost of all that artificial lighting? The article notes that one of the farms produces its own (geothermal) energy. But is this generally true? The article makes much of exporting knowledge. But how much of the “sustainability” of this model is tied to cheap renewable energy sources? Like geothermal in the Netherlands. One researcher notes “on the assumption of efficient LED lighting, I estimate tha…

That 1200kWh figure doesn't make any sense. It says that "edible tissue" excludes water content. Each kg of tomatoes has about 950g of water. That means 60kWh per kg of tomatoes, which will cost about 5 EUR. You won't be able to sell your produce at that price.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#288

Post by hellofunk »

tirant wrote: post #272
hellofunk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just buy any of the many other tomatoes available at a Dutch grocery other than the cheapest option.

Even the most expensive tomatoes at AH suck in flavour compared to the cheapest you can get in Spain or ITaly.

Honestly I just fail to see the point. The Netherlands has a much different climate from Spain or Italy. The avocados from Florida are far inferior from those in California. Try growing oranges in Michigan. Regions vary, why is everyone whining about the ability for a northern nation to grow large amounts of food despite its circumstances?

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#289

Post by hycaria »

Fnoord wrote: post #261
hycaria wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Its very important to be critical of farmers. I've always felt that it's a bit ironic for people consuming animal products to be critical of breeders. Kinda passing responsibilities on them so tadaaa ! No more consumer guilt. If you really want to reduce animal exploitation and world GHG emission, cut down your consumption instead of putting even more pressure on producers without accepting to get more money out of…

> I've always felt that it's a bit ironic for people consuming animal products to be critical of breeders. Kinda passing responsibilities on them so tadaaa ! No more consumer guilt. Its relative, not absolute, and history teaches us we need to be critical of farmers. The recent fipronil scandal only underlines that. Our government failed as well, don't get me wrong. If you want to reduce harm done to sentient beings…

All I'm saying is that it's not important to be critical of farmers but of consumers. Were there not so much demand for cheap animal products, all these problems would not be there. Almost every breeder I've met enjoys caring for its animals, but the harsh truth is that a farm is a business and most decisions are money-based, and also that time is crucially limited (can't spend 2 hours everyday for weeks caring for one single animal).

The recent fipronil scandal I'm not especially hostile to. It's like the horse meat thing, no risk for the consumer, it's simple fraud from the antiparasitics producer afaik and not latent farmer malignancy. You're way more exposed if you use antiflea products on your pets... And fipronil is really low risk for mammals overall. Oh, and of course this was in the cheap industry side of laying hens, so your wallet could vote on this beforehand.

Yet people still don't want to spend more on food. Most already shop first price, its just not a priority when you need to get a new phone and other stupid stuff. And this is the exact kind of consumer who can leisurely insist that we need to be critical of farmers. Oh, the irony. Sweep before your own door, you know.

But good on you, I hope your taking part in this Facebook group (probably known for it's high scientific and intellectual qualities, as everything that is on facebook) is comforting enough that you don't have to drastically change your consuming and behavior (and chronically, as "scandals" break out, underlines that farmers have a HUGE responsability in this), because what a shame that would be.

Re: The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant

#290

Post by Paradigma11 »

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.

"In fact that is the animal's only purpose of existence."

From the farmers point of view.

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