OrionWorks wrote: > It's good to know that Mr. Cornwall has informed of the fact that he > has important things do. I was beginning to get worried. > > Jones, it truly astonishes me to realize that such a small country is > capable of producing that much output. Puts us (The so-called Bread > Basket?) to shame.
Ahem... It is, in fact, not all that clear that the Dutch rank second in food exports. Thus spake Wiki: > The Dutch rank third worldwide in value of agricultural exports, > behind the United States and France, with exports earning $55 billion > annually. A significant portion of Dutch agricultural exports are > derived from fresh-cut plants, flowers, and bulbs, with the > Netherlands exporting two-thirds of the world's total. The > Netherlands also exports a quarter of all world tomatoes, and > one-third of the world's exports of peppers and cucumbers.[21] Note, first, they rank third, not second, just behind France. And, second, note that this rank is based on total *value* of all *agricultural* products, which includes very high margin cut flowers and bulbs, which are shipped worldwide from Holland. These are luxury goods, not commodity foods, and are priced accordingly. In comparison, countries such as U.S., Canada, Argentina, and much of Europe export huge amounts of low-margin commodity grain. I very much doubt that Holland's net *biomass* exports would put them anywhere near third place in the world. If anyone has a source indicating where Holland falls with regard to actual commodity FOOD exports, rather than total "agricultural" exports, it would be interesting to see the numbers.
