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It’s always a bit cringe, as an IT guy, overhearing non-technical people debate tech. I know the answers to most of their “why don’t they just” questions, or at

It’s always a bit cringe, as an IT guy, overhearing non-technical people debate tech. I know the answers to most of their “why don’t they just” questions, or at least know they’re asking the wrong ones. Jumping in is an uphill battle, so I usually don’t bother. But I’m more of a farmer at heart. For my newsletter/platform I follow agricultural research from the Netherlands on a daily basis. That country is arguably the best center for agricultural R&D anywhere. This particular study is evidence of that. That makes HN threads on farming equally painful to read. The “why don’t they just,” “we should do more about,” and “we need to innovate/research” takes are almost always mis- or superficially informed. The term “mycorrhiza” for example was coined by Albert Bernhard Frank in 1885. So we’ve been doing research on this topic for at least 14 decades already.

fikama 6mo ago
Please share links or at least names of your sources. I would love to have a good source for this topic. Agricultural reaserch from Netherlands seems very broad. Are there any particular journals, newsletters that you follow?
goobatrooba 6mo ago
The Netherlands has a great agricultural economy, but is it really so innovative/sustainable ? Half seems to be giant greenhouses and the other half just the same planting the Germans or french do, maybe on larger fields. Definitely far ahead on the curve on "how to grow things efficiently in a greenhouse", but then there are usually giant heaters next to those..
- spiderfarmer 6mo ago
  This is what I mean with superficially informed. > Is it really so innovative/sustainable? Yes. 100% yes. If you're focused on energy use, the Dutch agricultural sector has been a net producer since 2015. Not all of that is "green", but even where they use gas turbines, they're more efficient than all other forms of fossil energy generation, because both heat and CO2 is put to use. Wageningen University & Research is consistently ranked the world's #1 agricultural university. The Greenport regions (Westland, Aalsmeer, Venlo) function as innovation clusters where growers, suppliers, breeders, and researchers are physically clustered. > Half seems to be giant greenhouses and the other half just the same planting the Germans or french do, maybe on larger fields. Please stop guessing numbers. It's 4.500 hectares of (food production) greenhouses vs. 1.8 million hectares of areable land. > Definitely far ahead on the curve on "how to grow things efficiently in a greenhouse", but then there are usually giant heaters next to those.. The greenhouse sector runs gas-fired CHP (combined heat and power) units. They burn natural gas to produce three things at once: heat for the greenhouse, CO2 for the plants, and electricity. The electricity gets sold to the grid when prices are high. By 2015, 30-35% of the Netherlands' grid power came from CHP systems operating in greenhouses. That's already genuinely impressive. But the interesting shift right now is the move away from CHP towards a combination of electrification, geothermal, and rooftop/internal solar. Dutch greenhouses achieve world-leading yields by using high-tech systems that produce ten times more than open-field farming. This efficiency is driven by closed-loop water recirculation, precision nutrient dosing, and biological pest control, which reduces chemical use by 97%. These methods allow the Netherlands to remain the world's second-largest agricultural exporter despite its small size. Open-field Dutch farming is just as exceptional, and for largely the same structural reasons. The environmental pressures are real, but they are also driving much of today’s innovation: variable-rate fertiliser and spot-spraying systems that reduce inputs without reducing yield; mechanical and laser weeding as alternatives to herbicides; strip cropping and pixel farming trials at WUR; precision manure injection; cover cropping and non-inversion tillage becoming more mainstream; and breeding programmes focused on nitrogen-use efficiency and disease resistance to lower both fertiliser and pesticide use. I could go on and on. There are dozens of research projects in soil preservation as well as regulatory changes. There are just 51.200 companies in the agricultural sector, but what they achieve is so damned impressive.

fikama 6mo ago

Please share links or at least names of your sources. I would love to have a good source for this topic. Agricultural reaserch from Netherlands seems very broad. Are there any particular journals, newsletters that you follow?

goobatrooba 6mo ago

The Netherlands has a great agricultural economy, but is it really so innovative/sustainable ? Half seems to be giant greenhouses and the other half just the same planting the Germans or french do, maybe on larger fields. Definitely far ahead on the curve on "how to grow things efficiently in a greenhouse", but then there are usually giant heaters next to those..

spiderfarmer 6mo ago
This is what I mean with superficially informed. > Is it really so innovative/sustainable? Yes. 100% yes. If you're focused on energy use, the Dutch agricultural sector has been a net producer since 2015. Not all of that is "green", but even where they use gas turbines, they're more efficient than all other forms of fossil energy generation, because both heat and CO2 is put to use. Wageningen University & Research is consistently ranked the world's #1 agricultural university. The Greenport regions (Westland, Aalsmeer, Venlo) function as innovation clusters where growers, suppliers, breeders, and researchers are physically clustered. > Half seems to be giant greenhouses and the other half just the same planting the Germans or french do, maybe on larger fields. Please stop guessing numbers. It's 4.500 hectares of (food production) greenhouses vs. 1.8 million hectares of areable land. > Definitely far ahead on the curve on "how to grow things efficiently in a greenhouse", but then there are usually giant heaters next to those.. The greenhouse sector runs gas-fired CHP (combined heat and power) units. They burn natural gas to produce three things at once: heat for the greenhouse, CO2 for the plants, and electricity. The electricity gets sold to the grid when prices are high. By 2015, 30-35% of the Netherlands' grid power came from CHP systems operating in greenhouses. That's already genuinely impressive. But the interesting shift right now is the move away from CHP towards a combination of electrification, geothermal, and rooftop/internal solar. Dutch greenhouses achieve world-leading yields by using high-tech systems that produce ten times more than open-field farming. This efficiency is driven by closed-loop water recirculation, precision nutrient dosing, and biological pest control, which reduces chemical use by 97%. These methods allow the Netherlands to remain the world's second-largest agricultural exporter despite its small size. Open-field Dutch farming is just as exceptional, and for largely the same structural reasons. The environmental pressures are real, but they are also driving much of today’s innovation: variable-rate fertiliser and spot-spraying systems that reduce inputs without reducing yield; mechanical and laser weeding as alternatives to herbicides; strip cropping and pixel farming trials at WUR; precision manure injection; cover cropping and non-inversion tillage becoming more mainstream; and breeding programmes focused on nitrogen-use efficiency and disease resistance to lower both fertiliser and pesticide use. I could go on and on. There are dozens of research projects in soil preservation as well as regulatory changes. There are just 51.200 companies in the agricultural sector, but what they achieve is so damned impressive.