Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: This may be a little off topic but anyway . . . On NHK the other day I saw a documentary about food exports and high-tech agriculture in the Netherlands. Here is a web page about it: http://www.hollandtrade.com/sector-information/agriculture-and-food/ This is mind-boggling. The Netherlands is an itty bitty country with very high population density, and yet they are the second largest food exporter in the world, after the U.S! They grow massive amounts of food in highly sophisticated sealed greenhouses. These are more like futuristic food factories than what you might think of as greenhouses. They monitor ~100 growth parameters. They increase CO2 concentration. People have to cover up their shoes and wear plastic haz mat style clothing to avoid contaminating the crops. That is hard to believe. Perhaps they mean second largest food exporter per capita? harry harry
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
It includes bulbs and cut flowers - but agriculture only employs 4% of the population! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Agriculture I must admit I find a lot ot admire about the Dutch way of doing things. - Leo From: Harry Veeder hveeder...@gmail.com That is hard to believe. Perhaps they mean second largest food exporter per capita?
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
Harry Veeder hveeder...@gmail.com wrote: That is hard to believe. Perhaps they mean second largest food exporter per capita? No, the second largest in the world. I think measured in dollar value of the exports, not food tonnage. Amazing, isn't it? A little country with 16 million people. They also export the technology, but that is accounted separately, says NHK. The website I found says: Holland is the world’s 2nd largest exporter of agricultural products, after the USA. Together with the USA and France, Holland is one of the top 3 exporters of vegetables and fruit. The total value of Dutch agricultural exports was 75.4 billion euros in 2012. The Dutch agri-food industry contributes 52.5 billion euros of added value to Dutch GDP, and accounting for some 20% of Holland's total export value. The Netherlands is responsible for 22% of the world’s potato exports . . . The Dutch experts interviewed on NHK emphasized that this is a high tech, computer driven industry. One guy -- a farmer I guess you would call him -- gets up at 7 am and drives to an ultramodern office next to his 30-hectare food factory. He is sitting in an office looking at computer screens for a while. He jokes, things look good. I guess I can go home. He says he often spends more time looking at data than actual crops. Inside the greenhouse factory the roof is high and everything is metered and controlled to a fair-thee-well. It is all hydroponic. The incoming water is cleaned, filtered and cleared of bacteria, and then mixed with nutrients and iodine. The people picking crops wear haz mat suits and ride on electric cars that rise up to the high end of the vines. A robot train of picked crops threads its way to the processing building. Pretty soon I expect robots will also pick the crops. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
one interesting Dutch technology is Perfotec- they laser drill microscopic holes in plastic bags to give just the right balance of CO2, O2, H20 transpiration to keep the veggies fresh twice or so as long during shipment. Nothing like it in the US - yet. The match the holes with the specific crop (machines measure that specific crop's transpiration and match the holes exactly for that item) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2013 17:14:34 -0400 Subject: Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports From: jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Harry Veeder hveeder...@gmail.com wrote: That is hard to believe. Perhaps they mean second largest food exporter per capita? No, the second largest in the world. I think measured in dollar value of the exports, not food tonnage. Amazing, isn't it? A little country with 16 million people. They also export the technology, but that is accounted separately, says NHK. The website I found says: Holland is the world’s 2nd largest exporter of agricultural products, after the USA. Together with the USA and France, Holland is one of the top 3 exporters of vegetables and fruit. The total value of Dutch agricultural exports was 75.4 billion euros in 2012. The Dutch agri-food industry contributes 52.5 billion euros of added value to Dutch GDP, and accounting for some 20% of Holland's total export value. The Netherlands is responsible for 22% of the world’s potato exports . . . The Dutch experts interviewed on NHK emphasized that this is a high tech, computer driven industry. One guy -- a farmer I guess you would call him -- gets up at 7 am and drives to an ultramodern office next to his 30-hectare food factory. He is sitting in an office looking at computer screens for a while. He jokes, things look good. I guess I can go home. He says he often spends more time looking at data than actual crops. Inside the greenhouse factory the roof is high and everything is metered and controlled to a fair-thee-well. It is all hydroponic. The incoming water is cleaned, filtered and cleared of bacteria, and then mixed with nutrients and iodine. The people picking crops wear haz mat suits and ride on electric cars that rise up to the high end of the vines. A robot train of picked crops threads its way to the processing building. Pretty soon I expect robots will also pick the crops. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
So in 2012 each Dutch agricultural worker generated an average personal export revenue of 112'276 Euros, in addition to the local produce for the Dutch market. Charles From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: 09 June 2013 23:15 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports The total value of Dutch agricultural exports was 75.4 billion euros in 2012.
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 2:14 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: The people picking crops wear haz mat suits and ride on electric cars that rise up to the high end of the vines. A robot train of picked crops threads its way to the processing building. Pretty soon I expect robots will also pick the crops. I like the high-tech approach to agriculture, but the hazmat suites and the water sterilization seem a little anachronistic -- like a 1960s take on what the future will be like. The view here in California looks a little different, with the farmers' markets and the locavore movement -- people are wanting food to be less high-tech rather than more high tech. My guess is that this is where the future is. There will be increasing market demand around the world for food grown the old-fashioned way -- organic, without large fertilizer inputs and tractors and so on. People will want cheese produced on a farm nearby rather than shipped across the country and loaded with preservatives to keep it from going bad. They will want strange, long-forgotten cultivars rather than the stock iceberg and romain lettuce and the abnormally large and pale tomatos that you seen in the chain supermarkets. This is not to say that high-tech has no place; just that the haz-mat suites and the water sterilization seem a little out of tune with where things are heading, if I had my guess. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
I wrote: People will want cheese produced on a farm nearby rather than shipped across the country and loaded with preservatives to keep it from going bad. That was a bad example; I doubt cheese goes bad like that -- the normal kind, anyway. But the general idea still applies. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sun, 9 Jun 2013 17:14:34 -0400: Hi, [snip] Holland is also a major export port for a large part of Europe, and does a lot of trade. So the export figures could include agricultural products imported from other European countries as well as those produced locally. Harry Veeder hveeder...@gmail.com wrote: That is hard to believe. Perhaps they mean second largest food exporter per capita? No, the second largest in the world. I think measured in dollar value of the exports, not food tonnage. Amazing, isn't it? A little country with 16 million people. They also export the technology, but that is accounted separately, says NHK. The website I found says: Holland is the worlds 2nd largest exporter of agricultural products, after the USA. Together with the USA and France, Holland is one of the top 3 exporters of vegetables and fruit. The total value of Dutch agricultural exports was 75.4 billion euros in 2012. The Dutch agri-food industry contributes 52.5 billion euros of added value to Dutch GDP, and accounting for some 20% of Holland's total export value. The Netherlands is responsible for 22% of the worlds potato exports . . . The Dutch experts interviewed on NHK emphasized that this is a high tech, computer driven industry. One guy -- a farmer I guess you would call him -- gets up at 7 am and drives to an ultramodern office next to his 30-hectare food factory. He is sitting in an office looking at computer screens for a while. He jokes, things look good. I guess I can go home. He says he often spends more time looking at data than actual crops. Inside the greenhouse factory the roof is high and everything is metered and controlled to a fair-thee-well. It is all hydroponic. The incoming water is cleaned, filtered and cleared of bacteria, and then mixed with nutrients and iodine. The people picking crops wear haz mat suits and ride on electric cars that rise up to the high end of the vines. A robot train of picked crops threads its way to the processing building. Pretty soon I expect robots will also pick the crops. - Jed Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
In reply to mix...@bigpond.com's message of Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:03:25 +1000: Hi, [snip] In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sun, 9 Jun 2013 17:14:34 -0400: Hi, [snip] Holland is also a major export port for a large part of Europe, and does a lot ...I probably should have said Rotterdam is ... Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
I wrote: I like the high-tech approach to agriculture, but the hazmat suites and the water sterilization seem a little anachronistic -- like a 1960s take on what the future will be like. The view here in California looks a little different, with the farmers' markets and the locavore movement -- people are wanting food to be less high-tech rather than more high tech. This, as many will be aware, is how things have largely been done in Europe and many other places for a long time. It's really North America that is catching up. We fell in love with the industrial revolution and automation and got MacDonalds as a result. But I wonder whether MacDonalds and similar businesses will either have to adapt or risk going into decline in the next generation or two. Another possible example of the future of agriculture could be the so-called fourth wave of coffee. At some places you can order coffee from a binder, each page of which profiles a small coffee producer in some part of the world. It puts a face on the people making the coffee. It's all a little fancy, but I think there's something neat about looking into the otherwise anonymous supply chain. I think this kind of preference in product selection will catch on around the world as people have more disposable income, and that they will be willing to put up the additional money required for the decreased productivity that it implies. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 6:44 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: I like the high-tech approach to agriculture, but the hazmat suites and the water sterilization seem a little anachronistic I imagine the suits are to protect from mold spore. Many times I have seen a loaf of bread begin to grow five green circles . . . one on one side and four on the other. :)
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
mix...@bigpond.com wrote: Holland is also a major export port for a large part of Europe, and does a lot of trade. So the export figures could include agricultural products imported from other European countries as well as those produced locally. No, the sources are clear. This is the export of food grown in Holland. It does not include food transshipped through. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: I like the high-tech approach to agriculture, but the hazmat suites and the water sterilization seem a little anachronistic -- like a 1960s take on what the future will be like. Apparently it reduces spoilage. They do not do anything there by accident or without careful testing. NHK says government and industry is pouring money into the technology. They say it has been revolutionized since the 1990s, with a tremendous increase in output and reduction in spoilage. The view here in California looks a little different, with the farmers' markets and the locavore movement -- people are wanting food to be less high-tech rather than more high tech. My guess is that people will say they want one thing but they will buy another. What they want in Europe and Japan is cheap but tasty food without blemishes. Organic food does not sell well in Japan because, for example, oranges are blemished with insect bites and they are of different sizes and shapes. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
Here's an interesting page with video of a Dutch indoor farming project. All light comes from LEDs. http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/14/dutch-plantlab-revolutionizes-farming-no-sunlight-no-windows-less-water-better-food/ On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 9:15 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: I like the high-tech approach to agriculture, but the hazmat suites and the water sterilization seem a little anachronistic -- like a 1960s take on what the future will be like. Apparently it reduces spoilage. They do not do anything there by accident or without careful testing. NHK says government and industry is pouring money into the technology. They say it has been revolutionized since the 1990s, with a tremendous increase in output and reduction in spoilage. The view here in California looks a little different, with the farmers' markets and the locavore movement -- people are wanting food to be less high-tech rather than more high tech. My guess is that people will say they want one thing but they will buy another. What they want in Europe and Japan is cheap but tasty food without blemishes. Organic food does not sell well in Japan because, for example, oranges are blemished with insect bites and they are of different sizes and shapes. - Jed -- Frank Acland Publisher, E-Cat World http://www.e-catworld.com Author, The Secret Power Beneath https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sun, 9 Jun 2013 22:10:11 -0400: Hi Jed, I realize that whoever wrote the article believed that to be true, but they had to get their figures from somewhere, and I suspect they used government sources, which they may not have completely understood. mix...@bigpond.com wrote: Holland is also a major export port for a large part of Europe, and does a lot of trade. So the export figures could include agricultural products imported from other European countries as well as those produced locally. No, the sources are clear. This is the export of food grown in Holland. It does not include food transshipped through. - Jed Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
mix...@bigpond.com wrote: I realize that whoever wrote the article believed that to be true, but they had to get their figures from somewhere, and I suspect they used government sources, which they may not have completely understood. The information I quoted came from The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs website. I confirmed it in other sites. The NHK interview was with Dutch farmers and government officials. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Netherlands food exports
No, the sources are clear. This is the export of food grown in Holland. It does not include food transshipped through. Here's a source. $55 billion, of which $7b is flowers, and the rest of the majority is trans-shipments, according to the USDA. World exports in agricultural products totals $622 billion. The field is dominated by the USA, the Netherlands and France, with exports worth $68, $55 and $46 billion, respectively. Belgium and Luxembourg, export a combined $27 billion of agricultural products. More than thirteen percent of global agriculture and food export moves through the Benelux’s two main ports, Rotterdam and Antwerp, which serve most of Northern and Central Europe. The value of world export in horticultural products (plants and flowers, vegetables and fruit) is $71 billion. The Benelux share of this market is substantial, roughly 26%, or $19 billion. The Netherlands is a large producer and exporter of vegetables and the world’s largest exporter of ornamental plant products, in addition to being a major trans-shipment station for fruit. Meanwhile, Belgium has a considerable market share in world export of vegetables and fruit, but in reality the majority of the trade in fruit is trans-shipments. World export in plants (live trees and other plants; bulbs; cut flowers and ornamental foliage) was $12.4 billion in 2003. Over sixty percent, or $7.6 billion worth, was exported via the Netherlands, and the vast majority ($6.3 billion worth) were Dutch-produced. Netherlands: Agricultural situation. USDA Foreign Agriculture Service.
