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How the Netherlands Feeds the World (2017)
- MordodeMaru 8y agoI'm guessing that Israel and Spain might be behind the Netherlands in this trend. Absolutely fascinating.
- ggm 8y agoGoogle Earth to the greenhouse complex is southern Spain is visually entertaining. Similar giant single area in the NL?
- oever 8y agoWestland south of The Hague https://www.google.com/maps/place/Westland/@51.9915637,4.1903113,13z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x47c5b7d4aa3838df:0x31ee3d1de87f506e!8m2!3d51.9991757!4d4.217457 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Westland/@51.9915637,4.190...
- ggm 8y agoOk. Keep scale same and look at El Ejido https://www.google.com/maps/place/El+Ejido,+Almería,+Spain/@36.7544008,-2.7821377,11z https://www.google.com/maps/place/El+Ejido,+Almería,+Spain/@...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- russellbeattie 8y ago"Food Valley"? Oh, come on... they could have done better! How about "Sustenance Valley"? But that brings up a secondary point... a valley?? In Holland??
- skrebbel 8y agoYeah, it's nuts. Every region and a half in the Netherlands that specializes in something calls themselves "something something valley". That said I was once in Silicon Valley and there were hills on the left and water on the right. Not really much of a valley either.
- tomsmeding 8y agoI live in the Netherlands, and I've never heard anything like that before. I live in The Hague, maybe it's a regional thing?
- sytse 8y agoI used to live in the Netherlands and I'm writing this from Utrecht. The valleys are regional: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Valley in Wageningen 2. https://www.healthvalley.nl/ https://www.healthvalley.nl/ in Nijmegen 3. http://www.metalvalley.eu/nl/home http://www.metalvalley.eu/nl/home in Brabant 4. https://www.immunovalley.nl/ https://www.immunovalley.nl/ in Utrecht 5. https://legalvalleynederland.nl/ https://legalvalleynederland.nl/ in Arnhem 6. https://www.energyvalley.nl/ https://www.energyvalley.nl/ in the northern provinces If you like partying you can always go to: https://dancevalley.com/ https://dancevalley.com/
- Aeolun 8y agoComing back to the Netherlands from abroad it often feels like they’re pretty good at coming up with what I would consider fairly cringeworthy names.
- skrebbel 8y agoYep! I myself live and work in the area (Eindhoven) that willingly calls itself "Brainport". I hear the word almost daily for ten years and I still cringe.
- skrebbel 8y agoThe pattern is so overused that organizations that never even tried to amount to something adopted it. Eg I was once at an event organized by "DSP Valley", which was never more than someone behind a desk organizing a few (mediocre) networking events: https://www.hightechcampus.nl/bedrijven/dsp-valley https://www.hightechcampus.nl/bedrijven/dsp-valley.
- timon-io 8y agoCalling anything in the Netherlands a hill or valley is a bit of a stretch. However 'Food Valley' refers to the regional nickname 'Gelderse Vallei' and is in fact a valley between the following ridges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_Hill_Ridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_Hill_Ridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veluwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veluwe
- radicalbyte 8y agoThe region is called the Valley and it is - thanks to Wageningen University - a world leader in agricultural research. So the name makes sense. I also live there; but to be honest they could rename it to "Randstad Valley" given the amount of people who are moving here from Amsterdam and Utrecht.
- jeeeeb 8y agoNot to talk down the Dutch achievement too much but the quality of statistics used in this article is terrible. Total monetary value of agricultural exports is a terrible way to measure output. It doesn't take into account: 1. Re-exports (Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe) 2. Specialisation in the production of certain goods (i.e. high imports and exports) 3. The high price of agricultural goods in Europe, driven by high trade barriers. 4. Low domestic consumption compared to more populous nations. For a better analysis of the monetary value of Dutch agricultural exports see here: https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exports-at-record-high https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exp... Note for example the 22.5 billion Euros in re-exports of agricultural goods. 90% reduction in water usage is also hard to judge without looking at changes in other advanced agricultural nations. It would be more interesting to see the yields per-hectare the Dutch are achieving compared to other advanced agricultural nations.
- tdons 8y agoIt's in Dutch buy you can read about that here: http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?PA=7100oogs http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?PA=7100oogs Few examples (2017 data): Potatoes 36 900 kg/ha Sugar beets 93 300 kg/ha Wheat 9 100 kg/ha Rye 3 200 kg/ha Corn 13 500 kg/ha - 48 900 kg/ha (different kinds) Onions 55 700 kg/ha
- nroets 8y agoOne would not expect The Netherlands to export so much in the presence of "high trade barriers". But I strongly suspect that trade barriers between European Union Members to be very low. Low transport costs also helped The Netherlands achieve this position. Numerous highways, railways and waterways connect it to it's neighbours.
- jeeeeb 8y agoThe Netherlands is in the EU. They have total unrestricted access to the EU market, which is exactly where the vast majority of their agricultural exports go.
- pasta 8y agoWhat is kind of funny is that people here like to pay more for 'organic' food because they think it's more healthy. But what comes from the greenhouse is so lab-grown it's more healthy than anything. Those labs also don't like to use pesticides because it's unhealthy for the workers and plants as well. They use insects to control pests. The only problem with greenhouse food is that it tastes like nothing. A tomato grown on soil has much more taste than grown on water.
- benj111 8y agoNot the only problem. They tend to pump CO2 into them to increase growth, that has the unfortunate effect of decreasing nutritional content. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27308720 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27308720 I'm sure I've seen research for other veg also, but my google fu is failing me at the mo.
- misja 8y agoIt's not the soil but the lack of sun that deprives the tomatoes of their taste. Greenhouses in the Netherlands are heated with natural gas. The Dutch government subsidises the gas so they can keep their costs low and be competitive. So that's another reason to eat organic food; it is more sustainable because it uses natural sunlight. And tastier as well!
- Aeolun 8y agoI’m fairly certain nobody would buy the Tomatoes if they didn’t have any taste.
- tluyben2 8y agoDepending where you live you probably already do and think that ‘no taste’ is the taste of tomato. In the Netherlands (where I am from) and the south of Spain (where I spend a lot of time) the difference is huge in taste buying an average tomato; the ones in NL taste like nothing compared but seems people are used to it.
- 8y ago
- tbarbugli 8y agoOnly problem is that dutch vegetables have no taste and are still insane expensive compared to meat (which is also tasteless). So yeah, awesome thinkering and efficiency here, but quality is not there.
- john_nik 8y agoI can concur to this. I have a friend from Italy where he worked during the summers at family farms down south where they produced tomatoes the natural way. Eating tomatoes in Netherlands is like eating paper, he said. The same goes for lettuce. There is no taste and it goes bad/degrades much faster even if you keep it in the refrigerator
- radicalbyte 8y agoThe same applies everywhere in Europe outside of Italy and France.
- grenoire 8y agoOne of my biggest complaints about living in the Netherlands is the goddamned tomatoes. Even after seasoning them and trying many different kinds, I just couldn't find one that was like... a tomato, in the way that I know it.
- Udik 8y agoI find the small cherry tomatoes (the "snoepgroente" ones) to be delicious, in the right season (of course quality varies throughout the year). With some buffalo mozzarella from Italy they make an excellent meal.
- Tsubasachan 8y agoWell as you know tomatoes don't grow naturally in the Netherlands. The whole thing about Dutch farming is efficiency. Produce vast quantities with minimal manpower or land use. Feeding the world>taste.
- radicalbyte 8y ago
- userulluipeste 8y ago"A farm atop a former factory in The Hague produces vegetables and fish in a self-sustaining loop: Fish waste fertilizes plants, which filter the water for the fish." If people should know something about how diseases & parasites appear and develop is that the existence of exactly this kind of "self-sustaining loop" is the essential part. Even in the outside environment, any given organism bares the risk of taking part in development of a new parasitic creature's life-cycle, but that risk is greatly reduced by having an inconsistent pattern of interaction with other symbiotic creatures. Here the people involved are just asking for it (unless they go out their way to sterilize the substances circulating in that plant-fish loop).
- gattr 8y agoImpressive, to be sure, especially the technical side of things. However I really dislike greenhouses like these for the huge amount of light pollution they cause (speaking as an amateur astronomer). Sure, it probably doesn't matter much in a densely populated area like the Netherlands, but they start to also pop up here in Eastern Europe, in (previously-) dark-sky locations.