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
