PICTURES: JOHN CHERIAN

Gerda verburg, Minister for Agriculture.

THE Netherlands, a small country in Europe with a population smaller than 16 million, is the second largest exporter of agricultural and horticultural produce in the world after the United States.

A visit to some of the high-tech centres, greenhouses and dairy farms in the country was an eye-opener for this correspondent. In “Tomato World”, which showcases the country’s greenhouse industry, more than 60 varieties of tomatoes are grown. The nutrients found in the waste left by fish are used to grow tomatoes.

Many Dutch companies have started focussing on “algae farming”. Some companies grow algae on an industrial scale. Constant innovations are going on in the dairy sector. In many farms, it is not unusual to see cows being milked by robots. Experiments are currently on to produce high-yielding paddy varieties with lower water requirement. This would be a boon for the arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Dutch are confident that the global food crisis can be tackled through innovative technology. The Dutch government’s main focus is to improve the food scenario in sub-Saharan Africa. Dutch Minister for Agriculture Gerda Verburg, who met a group of media representatives from different parts of the world at the house of a farmer near the town of Woerden, said that the land available to Dutch farmers was limited but they were a very ambitious lot. “Every piece of available land is cultivated,” the Minister said. The Dutch government, she said, did not monetarily subsidise farmers but backed them up with research. She cited, as an example, the successful scheme of producing energy from poultry manure. “Ten years of struggle were expended to find investments for the project.” She said that a lot of emphasis was given to family-owned farmsteads.

The use of pesticides is discouraged by the government. “The goal is to stop using pesticides and to reduce pollution,” she said. The farmers in the country will have to take more responsibilities such as “managing the water and the environment”. Another main priority of the government is to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emission.

The government is giving priority to Africa. “Agriculture in Africa has been neglected for too long. The international community has to evolve a common policy to stimulate agriculture in the continent,” she said. The urgent need, according to the Minister, is to develop a policy on agriculture and horticulture for Africa. Gerda Verburg has appealed to all her counterparts in the European Union to take meaningful steps to help Africa.

The country’s premier research institute in agriculture and life sciences, the Wageningen Agricultural University, had former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the keynote speaker at the opening of this year’s academic session on September 1. The university’s research programme focusses on “food security”, which has once again become a critical issue for the developing world. The university had brought out a report titled “Realising the Promise and Potential of African Agriculture” in 2004. It was commissioned by the U.N. The report concluded that “the advancement of agriculture, with a focus on small-holder farmers, is central to economic progress in developing countries in Africa”. The African Union (A.U.) accepted the report’s recommendations in 2005 and adopted a Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Developmental Programme, which aims to achieve a 6 per cent annual increase in agricultural productivity.

In "Tomoto World", which showcases the Netherlands' greenhouse industry. More than 60 varieties of tomatoes are grown here.

Kofi Annan, in his speech “Feeding the World” said that the goal of the university to provide a “healthy food and living environment” was close to the vision shared by many in the African continent. Annan, after his retirement, is closely connected with a new initiative known as the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). He said that 854 million people in the world went hungry every day while the environment was being devastated by a combination of factors that included deforestation and desertification. He noted that the price of food staples had risen by 50 per cent this year in many countries and that their greatest impact was on the poor. Of the 37 countries hit the hardest by the food crisis, 21 are in Africa.

Annan said that the farmers in Africa were in no position to benefit from the high food prices. He explained that they could not afford the high prices for fertilizers or high-yielding seeds. The use of fertilizers by African farmers is one-tenth of the global average. He was critical of the structural adjustment policies imposed by Western financial institutions on African countries. Annan said that these were detrimental to agriculture. “African food production per person has actually declined by 12 per cent since 1980. This makes Africa the only region where per capita food production is declining,” he said.

Annan emphasised that Africa needed a programme similar to the E.U.’s. He pointed out that agriculture was allotted 43 per cent of the E.U.’s budget – a whopping 40 billion euros. Annan revealed that AGRA has an ambitious plan to revitalise Africa’s agriculture. He said the focus would be to “revolutionise the entire food value chain in Africa”. But he admitted that the realisation of this goal would “require one of the largest efforts in human history”. The African farmer, he pointed out, faced many challenges, which included depleted soil and unreliable rain. Only 5 per cent of the arable land in Africa is irrigated. Only 20 per cent of people living in rural areas have access to electricity. Climate change has increased both drought and flooding. “Africa has become a continent that produces what it doesn’t eat and imports what it eats. And this is not a sustainable model,” averred Annan.

Professor Huub Loffler of Wageningen University said that the current food crisis was more a “problem of distribution”. He pointed out that there was enough food to feed the world but people were going hungry. He foresees a crisis by the year 2050 if food production is not increased dramatically. “The population will grow by 9-10 billion. By 2050, we need to double production.” He said that there was scope for increasing irrigated areas and increasing yields. Loffler said that the know-how for doubling plant production was already available. The Netherlands is already using alternative sources of energy to boost crop yields. He noted that currently only 1-2 per cent of the solar energy reaching the earth was captured by plants. “New innovations may offer new solutions,” said Professor Loffler.

The university has set up a “Restaurant of the Future” on its sprawling campus. This is a restaurant as well as a laboratory. Cameras monitor how consumers make choices. Through experiments researchers try to find out why particular products are popular, while others are not. Big multinational food chains and fast food companies have financed this multi-billion-euro project. The Dutch combination of science and industry has paid big dividends. The Netherlands today is the largest global exporter of seeds and other plant production materials.

The Netherlands is leading the way with “out-of-the-box” thinking. Many of the greenhouses in the country combine crop production with electricity production. Algaelink, a high-tech factory which massproduces algae, hopes to supply the national carrier KLM with bio-diesel in 10 years. A pilot programme is already under way. Algae are environment friendly as they survive just on carbon dioxide. They are the fastest growing organisms on earth and they grow 20 to 50 times faster than trees and can be cultivated in both salt water and fresh water in all climates and places. Algae are being touted as the “third-generation biofuel”. Algae fuel, according to Peter Van den Dorpel of Algaelink, has the potential to be the aviation fuel of the future. He, however, admits that this will be viable only if oil prices remain above $100 a barrel. However, there are differing views on the subject.

At a Dairy farm in Leeuwarden in Friesland, where cows are milked by robots.

Another entrepreneur, C. Callenbach of Ingrepro which also produces algae, is of the view that fuel from algae and other vegetables can at the most contribute 20 per cent of the world’s oil needs in the future; 80 per cent will still have to come from fossil fuels. All the same, algae cultivation can make a significant contribution to climate control. “Twenty five tonnes of algae can consume 100 tonnes of CO2,” says Dorpel. Some Dutch entrepreneurs are cultivating algae on farmland with the aim of converting it into food, medicine and cosmetics.

In Tomato World, the greenhouses are fed with carbon dioxide captured from the port of Rotterdam. The carbon dioxide is filtered and transported to greenhouses in the western part of Holland where many of the greenhouses are located. This has two major benefits – lowering carbon dioxide emissions and increasing the productivity of greenhouses. In Tomato World, as in the rest of the country, the thrust is on growing hybrid varieties of vegetables. This increases yields while decreasing the use of pesticides. Koppert Kress Greenhouse specialises in cresses or micro-vegetables. Exotic plants from India, China and other parts of the world are grown here. Visitors are given the opportunity to taste, smell and cook with the best products from Holland’s greenhouses. Another company in the area boasts a combination of greenhouse and fish farm. Some of the biowaste from the fish farm is used to fertilize the tomato plants.

Holland’s dairy industry has, of course, been a trail blazer. The Dutch have been acknowledged as “champion milk producers”. For the Dutch, the cow is almost a sacred animal. This, however, does not stop the Dutch from enjoying their steaks. A statue of a cow can be seen in Leeuwarden with the inscription “Our Mother”. There are 40 million cows and 30,000 dairy farms in the Netherlands. On an average, a Dutch dairy cow produces 35 litres of milk a day.

On a visit to a dairy farm in Leeuwarden in Friesland, this correspondent saw the famous Frisian pedigree cows being milked by robots. According to the manager of the farm, if a cow is comfortable it can produce 10,000 litres of milk annually. Like dairy products, the semen of Dutch bulls is also exported, earning the country huge amounts of money.

The dairy farm in Leeuwarden also produces electricity from biogas. Plans are at an advanced stage to provide electricity from the farm to 800 households.