What does high-tech agriculture look like?

When thinking of major exporters of agricultural products, most people will directly think of the following countries: the United States, Brazil, Argentina, India, Spain, and France. But with the exception of the United States, which is over 9 million square kilometers, no country can surpass the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has a land area of41,526 square kilometers and ranks 134th in the world. It is only 1/270 of the land area ofthe United States, 1/200 of Brazil, 1/69 of Argentina, 1/80 of India, and 12 of Spain. 1/16 of France.

But it is such a small country. In 2017, the export value of agricultural products reached 91.7 billion euros. The Netherlands has maintained its position as the second largest agricultural exporter in the world, second only to the United States. The Netherlands is an absolute top student in various segments: the export of flowers, vegetables and fruits ranks first in the world, the export of dairy products ranks third in the world (after Germany and New Zealand), and the export of animal and vegetable oils ranks third in the world (after China). and India), the fourth largest meat exporter in the world (after the United States, Brazil and Germany). Its greenhouse vegetables, accounting for three-quarters of the total vegetable production, 86% of the production will be sold around the world.

In fact, the natural conditions in the Netherlands are not outstanding. A quarter of the country's land area is below sea level, and it faces the problem of low-lying humidity and insufficient sunlight, which is extremely detrimental to the growth of crops. How did the Netherlands do it?

The real Dutch agriculture is the following scenarios:

1. The largest greenhouse cluster in the world

Greenhouse area near The Hague, Netherlands (Image: National Geographic)

It is home to the largest greenhouse farming area in the world.

2. Large-scale automated chicken farms

Chicken farms in the middle of the Netherlands (Image: National Geographic)

A chicken farm can raise 150,000 chickens at the same time, which is almost completely automated.

3. High-tech fully-monitored automatic tomato production line

Uninterrupted lighting with LED lights and full real-time monitoring of all nutrients and indicators. The Netherlands is the second largest supplier of tomatoes in Europe, after Spain. The Dutch use 1.1 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes, the United States is 15.2 gallons, and China is as high as 34 gallons.

4. Dairy cow milking line

An automatic milking machine can milk 150 cows in an hour, which is how the great productivity of Dutch dairy cows is born. The Netherlands is home to Friesland-Campina, the world's largest dairy company, and food giant Unilever, which is shared with Britain.

5. Super efficient flower planting management and logistics technology

FloraHolland in the Netherlands is the world's largest flower auction market, with annual sales of 4.5 billion euros and 12.5 billion flower and plant sales. In 2017, the Netherlands exported flowers worth 9.1 billion euros, accounting for nearly 70% of the EU total.

The agricultural modernization of the Netherlands has also attracted much attention and praise from Chinese agricultural operators.

The overall advantages and core competitiveness of the Netherlands mainly come from three factors

(1) Leading technology

We sighed at the shock of the above-mentioned high-tech industries, but we found that the accumulation of these high-tech technologies not only came from the major R&D investment in the Netherlands. It is also inseparable from the in-depth cooperation between its industry and scientific research institutions. Wageningen University is one of the 14 universities in the Netherlands and ranks first in the Dutch Higher Education Guide. It is the strongest university in the Netherlands for agriculture and one of the best research universities in Europe.

Although it is only around 50-150 in the world university rankings, its agricultural and environmental sciences are the strongest in the world. The rate of translation of science and technology into productive practice is consistently ranked among the world's leading universities. Including Unilever, FrieslandCampina, Nestle, Heinz and even Yili have set up research institutes in universities, and many technologies developed will be absorbed by the company and used in production in a very short time.

(2) Standardized process

According to statistics, the area ofglass greenhouses in the Netherlands reaches 165,000 mu, accounting for about 1/4 of the total area ofgreenhouses in the world. West Holland is the most concentrated area ofgreenhouses. About 60% of glass greenhouses are used for flower production, and 40% are mainly used for fruit and vegetable crops (mainly tomatoes, sweet peppers and cucumbers).

In terms of environmental control of glass greenhouses, all automatic controls have been realized, including lighting systems, heating systems, liquid fertilizer irrigation and fertilization systems, carbon dioxide supplementation devices, and mechanized picking and monitoring systems. The comprehensive automation of the glass greenhouse, coupled with advanced knowledge and technology, produces very high-yield and high-quality crops, and the agricultural products produced are also exported to other countries.

The Netherlands attaches great importance to informatization operations, field monitoring, and big data collection. The big data of these bases is well established. The big data is input into the computer, and the information technology is used to control various automatic operations and prevention and control of the greenhouse. Most of the greenhouse bases here rarely have diseases, and mostly focus on prevention, and collect big data on the possible occurrence of diseases and insect pests at what time.

(3) Institutional cooperation and division of labor

Dutch agriculture has corresponding links from seedling, planting, service organization, acquisition, sorting, and sales. Each link has a clear division of labor and close cooperation. Focus on each link to do a good job in the responsible area and do it to the extreme.

At the same time, the Dutch agricultural cooperatives implement a multi-membership system, that is, a farmer can become a member of several cooperatives at the same time; in order to protect the interests of the cooperatives, all agricultural cooperatives are organized in the National Agricultural Cooperative Bureau. The responsibility of the National Agricultural Cooperative Bureau is mainly to represent the cooperatives. interests, coordinate the relationship between cooperatives, coordinate the relationship between cooperatives and other economic organizations, and promote the development of cooperatives.