In The Netherlands we have what we proudly call "The Green Heart", the rural area inbetween the cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht

In The Netherlands we have what we proudly call "The Green Heart", the rural area inbetween the cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht. But while this looks nice to the untrained eye, green pastures and all, it might as well be a desert. Monocrop grasslands with little to no life in the ground, hardly any insects let alone birds. Grown on industrial fertilizer, and sprayed with insecticides. It is quite sad. Netherlands, a tiny tiny country, has this crazy intensive meat and poultry industry. We are largest chicken exporter in the world [0] and no. 6 in pork exports [1]. And in agriculture we are surprisingly number 2 worldwide after the USA [2]. While this is all nice and stuff for our economy, it has many downsides. Small, sustainable farmers find it very hard to eek out a living, and even the large producers find it ever harder to get good income. All the animals crammed together in mega stables pose pandemic risks, and overall the environment is suffering. But what the technology being used shows is that higher yields are well possible, also with way more sustainable production methods. This should be the focus and then export that expertise around the world so we can all benefit. I hope that in Netherlands itself we can scale back the crazy industrial race to the bottom, replacing with a mixture of traditional small-scale best-practice and innovative new agrotech. [0] https://www.worldstopexports.com/chicken-exports-by-country/ https://www.worldstopexports.com/chicken-exports-by-country/ (2019) [1] https://www.bizvibe.com/blog/food-beverages/top-pork-producing-countries https://www.bizvibe.com/blog/food-beverages/top-pork-produci... (2018) [2] https://humboldt.global/top-agricultural-exporters/ https://humboldt.global/top-agricultural-exporters/