Intensive farming in the Netherlands: ‘The solution is not in technology, but in the community’

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Within the land of intensive farming, Joke Wierenga is an exception. Her small farm outdoors of the town of Zwolle, within the japanese a part of the Netherlands, doesn’t depend on subsidies or chemical merchandise to enhance yield, however quite turns to the group for assist, with native residents turning into members of the backyard. 

“Folks pay upfront for the produce, after which, they should belief me as a farmer that I’ll do my greatest, and that the produce will meet their expectations,” she explains. Wierenga labored as a maths and science trainer till seven years in the past, when she visited an city backyard, and determined to do one thing related herself. 


Troubled waters
Half 1: Investigating Europe’s water air pollution disaster: Blame it on industrial farming
Half 2: Water air pollution and algal blooms: the collateral harm of the inexperienced revolution
Half 3: Who will cease Brittany’s poisonous inexperienced tide?
Half 4: Intensive farming in Netherlands: “The answer is just not in expertise, however within the community”

At this time, she runs a market backyard, a type of agriculture that’s environmentally pleasant, and seeks to enhance yields by means of excessive rotation and a broad vary of crops. In most market gardens, the farmers promote produce on to their prospects, if attainable.

The custom of market gardens may be traced again to the Center Ages, Wierenga explains, when meals was grown across the cities. With the event of farming expertise and rising populations, meals manufacturing moved away from the cities, and the system of farming turned closely mechanised so as to safe greater yields and be capable of feed the inhabitants. 

Joke Wierenga in her backyard outdoors of the town of Zwolle (Netherlands), August 2022. | Photograph: Jelena Prtorić

Market gardens symbolize an try and carry meals manufacturing nearer to the inhabitants once more. Each week, Wierenga notifies the members in regards to the progress of the yields, and so they come by and choose up their share. Some volunteer within the backyard and assist with planting and weeding. However this method additionally gives the safety small farmers have to survive. 

“A farmer runs a variety of dangers with regards to yields,” says Wierenga. “In a ‘community-supported agriculture system’ (CSA), the shoppers are additionally members of a backyard for at the least one yr, and share the dangers. [Since the members pay upfront], I do know what my earnings goes to be already in March, and that makes all of the distinction,” she explains.  

Creating group 

Wierenga’s land is owned by the native authorities, and he or she leases it for under €1000 a yr. At this time, she has a group of 100 members, and with the cash from the membership and academic actions she organises with faculties on the farm, Wierenga is left with an earnings of roughly €15,000 per yr. Nonetheless, she has no ensures that she’ll be capable of work within the backyard for 5 or ten years. The native authorities initially purchased it with the intent of constructing housing, however this was opposed by the local people, who needed to protect it as one of many uncommon inexperienced areas within the space.

In August 2022, on her farm, the flowers are blooming; there are courgettes, squashes and cabbages ready to be picked. There are fruit bushes and bushes adorned with pink and purple berries. The planting, weeding and choosing are all performed by hand, and Wierenga is aware of maintaining the patches of excessive grass intact, in addition to strips of flowers for the bees, butterflies and different bugs.


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She doesn’t use pesticides or artificial fertilizers, and he or she grows greens in keeping with the requirements of natural agriculture. Nonetheless, she is just not a licenced natural farmer. “It’s a must to pay for the licence, and though the associated fee is just not excessive, it provides to the executive burden. I wish to experiment with various kinds of greens, and I’ve so many alternative bushes and shrubs that I believe it might be a nightmare to attempt to categorise all this,” she says.  

Wierenga wouldn’t have been in a position to merely purchase land and begin a bigger farm. In line with knowledge from Eurostat, the statistical workplace of the European Union,  the Netherlands has the best buy value of arable land, on common, €69,632 per hectare, which makes it tough to purchase land. And for individuals who are already landowners, or who lease farming land, it’s crucial to supply effectively and abundantly.

At this time, regardless of its small floor space, the Netherlands is likely one of the greatest agricultural powerhouses on this planet, and the second greatest exporter of agricultural items (when it comes to exports worth) after the US. On the identical time, the share of land devoted to natural farming stays low, at lower than 5 %, whereas the EU common reached 9.1 % in 2020. 

In her garden market, Wierenga plants a broad variety of vegetables, shrubs and trees. August 2022. Credit: Jelena Prtorić
In her backyard market, Wierenga vegetation a broad number of greens, shrubs and bushes, August 2022. | Photograph: Jelena Prtorić

In the summertime of 2022, the Dutch farmers’ protests, which noticed them blocking roads with tractors and dumping manure on highways, hit headlines across the globe. The protests have been triggered by the federal government’s proposals for tackling nitrogen air pollution that may halve the emissions from fertilised soils. Though the degrees of animal manure produced have decreased because the Nineties, at the moment the nation nonetheless must eliminate 471 million kilograms of manure per yr.

In line with the estimates, this may result in 11,200 farms having to shut. As early as February 2021, Politico reported that an rising variety of Dutch farmers have been contemplating settling overseas in a bid to “flee the environmental guidelines.”

Though she is just not a dairy farmer herself, nor she shares their farming practices, Wierenga explains she understands the farmers’ frustration. A variety of them rely upon the European farming subsidies, distributed by way of the Frequent Agricultural Coverage, which additional locks them into the system of intensive farming, since subsidies are allotted per hectare. “On paper, it appears like they’re actually wealthy. However all the cash is locked within the land,” says Wierenga. “It’s like having an enormous home you could’t promote to anybody as a result of it’s simply too costly. Many farmers really feel caught. It’s laborious for them to transform in direction of a unique sort of agriculture.”

This text is revealed with in-depth analysis on water air pollution in agriculture supported by a 2022 Bertha Problem Fellowship. You may take a look at the mission web site right here: Troubled Waters

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