In the year 2050, nearly 10 billion people will be living on the earth. How will they feed? The Netherlands show today how the agriculture of the future could look like.
The Netherlands are a small country with a high population. Around a quarter of the area of the country is below sea level. You need thousands of kilometres of dikes to protect areas from floods. And it is precisely here that the solution should be found for one of the greatest tasks of mankind?
Some farmers and agricultural scientists in the country are in any case convinced. By the way here is cultivated, they say, can learn the world to feed the estimated 9.6 billion people will inhabit in 2050, the earth.
This self-consciousness does not come about by chance. Because the Netherlands are not only colourful tulips or klackernde wooden shoes known, but also for their Export of vegetables. In fact, the small country is after the USA the second largest exporter in the world. Around six billion euros to put the fruit and vegetable growers in the year with their products. Onions and potatoes, but also some kinds of vegetables that thrive in the South of Europe, grow here: tomatoes, peppers and chillies belong to the best-selling products.
The cultivation takes place mainly in greenhouses, and is a science in itself. The technology behind this is referred to as Precision Farming – it is the most advanced technology in the world, says the Dutch agricultural industry.
In the Dutch Westland farmers grow their tomatoes not in the ground, but in such bags
Old technology re-thought
At the beginning of the modern vegetables were breeding in the greenhouse, dignified gentlemen, who wanted to eat pineapple. And in fact, the first greenhouse, it must have been to cultivate this tropical fruit originated, in the year 1682 in Amsterdam.
The greenhouses were to survive for the Netherlands, later important. After the Second world war, the low countries put emphasis on the cultivation behind glass, never again hunger winter experience. In the last months of the German occupation, up to 20,000 people died.
Today, around 80 percent of the products are grown in the southern part of the Westlands, in greenhouses, in which each technique – such as when growing a company Duijvestijn Tomatoes. There, the tendrils of the plants under the weight of their red, yellow, green, and dark purple fruits turn. Who wants to be in the greenhouses clean, must wear, as a visitor, for reasons of hygiene, a protective suit.
“Overall, the system has a length of 13 to 14 metres and produces about perennials 33 Tomatoes”, says the head of the company, Ad van Adrichem.
Thus, the greenhouses can reach in Westland yield of 70 kilograms of tomatoes per square meter of growing space. This is almost ten times the average yield in other countries, such as Spain or Morocco, for example, where the vegetables on open fields are grown. The Dutch method needs virtually no pesticides, and it needs compared to growing outdoors are also eight times less water.
Instead of pesticides, natural predators are sent enemies into the race, in order to combat pests
Alternative Approaches
A secret of success of the Dutch tomato is hidden there, where they will take root. Contrary to the usual, don’t put in the ground, but in small bags with rock wool, so the Material can also be used for insulation and sound insulation used.
Watch the Video 04:55 live Now 04:55 Min. Share
Harvest miracle thanks to the LED
Send Facebook Twitter google+ Tumblr VZ Mr. Wong Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/39mmL
Harvest miracle thanks to the LED
“This one has a lot more control,” says van Adrichem. “We can control the amount of nutrients needed by the Plant, the better, as the amount of water.”
The greenhouses are equipped with all the technical bells and whistles. So Duijvestijn has invested Tomatoes in a double glass roof, the stores more heat and at the same time so much light that even the lower leaves of the plants get enough sun.
Geothermal sources do not ensure that the temperature in the buildings is too high and not too low.
The CO2 needs of the plants to cover, divert the gases from a petroleum refinery so that the CO2 content is doubled in the air. The sun does not Shine, ensure LED lights for artificial day light, and also radiates into the night.
The irrigation consists of pure höllandischen rain, which will be stored for dry times in an underground layer of sand. Pests should occur, the company is not on pesticides, but insects. Even hives there are, the inhabitants of which take over the pollination of the plants.
Leo marceli’s in one of his experimental greenhouses – here plants grow without sun light
Through all of these technological tools, and coordinated systems, it seems, so nothing would be left to chance. One could also speak of battery cages for plants, in which nature plays no major role more, or have to play. And there are these voices. Herman van Bekkem, for example, not only looks Good to the methods. He cares for Greenpeace in the country around the issues of food and agriculture.
“Of course, we see promising examples of how farmers reduce the use of pesticides,” he says to the DW. “But if you look at the bare Numbers, on the topic of water pollution in the Netherlands, for example, then there are no Region is a greater pollution than where the greenhouses are.” For many years water managers defendant in Westland, the large amounts of pesticides in waters.
“This is not but of us!” van Adrichem defended. “We have here a circle of closed water. We give the plants exactly as much water as you need. Because the tomatoes will not grow in the earth, can escape anything.”
The future is upright
Leo marceli’s, a Professor of horticulture at the University of Wageningen (WUR), in methods of cultivation within the buildings of the future. Its University is the research site of the Dutch food industry. For him vertical farms are the next step, he says.
“We will have in the future such farms. You will be as high as the highest buildings, and also with artificial light work”, says marceli’s. These would be units that would be so stacked to each other, as you need them. They would totally work in isolation from the climate outside and reliable yields, marceli’s.
Students from all over the world conduct research at the University of Wageningen in the future of agriculture
The half of the WUR-students come from countries other than the Netherlands. Many will take with them their experiences, to Africa, to Asia. There are many ways to use the techniques, says Ernst van den ende, head of the Department of plant Sciences, WUR. As an example, he cites a project he and his Team are in Africa working. In doing so, the optimization of the interaction of bean with a specific bacterium that is able to pull nitrogen from the air. Nitrogen is a crucial nutrient for plants.
“If we are to optimize this symbiosis, then we will be able to increase the harvest without fertilizer use,” says the researcher.
The main goal of his work is set, the Hunger of the people, he says. As his grandparents after the Second world war in the Netherlands have managed. “My grandmother had to go for a bag of sprouts to 80 kilometers,” says the researcher. With technical developments in the Netherlands, such a thing will never be necessary, because it is safe.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”Circus, UFO, the glass Palace?
A little mystical on you, therefore come on – the “Glass city” in Brussels. From afar she seems like a glass circus, a transparent UFO, or a glass Palace. The closest it comes to the Latter. Because the “Glass city” is actually a kind of Palace, but it belongs to Laken castle to the Belgian king and is adjacent to the residence.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”Castle!
The castle of Laken in the North of Brussels. It was built in the years 1782 to 1784 in the neoclassical style. Almost 100 years later, in 1873, granted to king Leopold II and his court architect, Alphonse Balat, the contract for the construction of an impressive winter garden, supported, later, for more greenhouses. The glass city.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”Plants, man and the enemy
King Leopold II, who wakes up as a bust, even today, about the family, was a great Plant lover. With people he was less squeamish. While he had his huge greenhouses planting, he depopulate the countryside. Leopold II was one of the richest men in the world, and with the Belgian Congo, he had, in Africa, a country that was more than 60 times as large as Belgium.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”Hard Hand – a Green thumb there
While king Leopold II was the population of the Belgian Congo is cruel abuse, and the immense ground had been exploiting the treasures, he used his resulting wealth to build gigantic greenhouses in Paris to emulate. The whole plant covers an area of approximately 14,000 square meters. Even today, the greenhouses are the largest glass landscape of Europe.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”Large and diverse
A way of more than a mile in length, leads by a total of 15 different houses with names such as “palm house” or “Congo house”. 60 gardeners take care of the some 60,000 different plants of the “Paradise garden”, as the Royal greenhouses of Laeken also called.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”A winter garden you have would have to
A Highlight of the “winter garden”, with its spectacular, 25-metre-high dome is supported by 36 pillars. Some of the date-palm trees extend right up to the glass ceiling. The Bombast will be paid. But in contrast to Leopold’s times, money plays a role. So there is in the “Congo house” is not a tropical plant. Otherwise, the Heating costs would be too high.
-
The hidden Interior of the “Glass city”Shine and Green
In the dark, the glass Ensemble is not less spectacular than in the sunshine. It is lighting of the Belle Époque shines in the Original. For approximately 100 years, the Royal house granted the Public during the flowering period for three weeks in the spring, access to your private garden. This year, it has still to 11. May the glass houses to look at.