News from the markets
The Little Kingdom that Feeds the World…
…and how FertiGlobal is helping them!
You probably know which country we’re talking about.
Hint: it’s in northern Europe, the windmill is a classic national symbol, and their sports teams are frequently cheered by exuberant orange-haired supporters.
And they grow lots of tulips. Which don’t help to feed the world, but this country still grows more than anyone else.
Yes, the Netherlands. This tiny country, its 40,000 square kilometres placing it 31st in size amongst European neighbours, is second only to the United States – at 270 times the size – in the value of agricultural exports.
As this week sees the Netherlands celebrate its national day, King’s Day, we thought a Netherlands blog was appropriate – and, in particular, a chance to see how FertiGlobal’s approach to crop production has resonated with Dutch farmers.
Much of the value of the Netherlands’ agricultural production can be attributed to its reliance on technology. Its 10,000 hectares of advanced greenhouses, carefully climate-controlled, can see growers coax the same yield as 100,000 hectares of conventional farmland.
Yet the country’s farmers aren’t just focused on protected crops like salads, tomatoes and flowers. Nor is the technology limited to glasshouses. In fact, agtech adoption amongst Netherlands farmers is some of the highest in the world, with a recent survey revealing that nearly half of Dutch farmers use some form of precision-farming technologies, such as GPS mapping, guided machinery and smart soil sensors, and that 14 per cent of the country’s agricultural and horticultural businesses are already using AI.
“Twice as much food using half as many resources” has been the firm commitment of the country’s agricultural industry for the last two decades. Its farmers have been practising sustainable agriculture long for longer than most of the world has even been aware of the term. They’ve delivered on their commitment, too: farmers have reduced their water consumption for key crops by as much as 90 per cent, while striving to – wherever possible – eliminate the use of routine pesticides.
Maximum potatoes
Dutch farmers can habitually wrangle 50 tonnes from each hectare. The global average yield for potatoes? Twenty-two tonnes. With around 120,000 ha in potatoes, it’s no wonder the country takes top spot in world exports of this staple crop.
Naturally that provides a focus for FertiGlobal. Our Dutch partner is a co-op with more than 10,000 members. It has around 30 per cent of the market share for potato crop inputs, and that’s why we’re working with its subsidiary to provide extensive support for the evaluation and demonstration of products based on our EnNuVi Technology.
EnNuVi – an acronym of Enhance, Nurture, Vitalize – is the patented Technology we developed as a vehicle for our ‘nutrient-polyphenolic molecule’ (NPM). Applied to the crop, NPM activates two of the plant’s main defence mechanisms against stress. Net effect? Amplified physiological responses that help the plant counter stress effects, while also producing defence substances like hydrogen peroxide, toxic to pathogens.
For the potato crop, we’re concentrating on our product IANUS. Its NPM base is supplemented with a ‘superpower hero’ manganese-zinc complex. These elements play an important role in many of the plant’s essential biochemical processes – photosynthesis, nitrate conversion and hormone signalling, while also preventing chlorophyll degradation to ensure plants maintain high photosynthetic activity.
Tulips
The colourful flowers are more than just an Instagrammable spring tourist attraction. Sales of the bulb contribute an annual €320m in export sales.
Our partner enjoys a 70% market share across the 21,000 ha under bulb production. Here, IANUS is again the FertiGlobal product of choice in tulips, where its stress-busting effects help to improve crop vitality and increase overall productivity.
Sugar beet
Then there’s sugar beet. Almost exclusively a crop of the northern hemisphere, where it’s too cold to grow sugar cane, Europe is the world’s biggest producer. And while the Netherlands can’t claim the top spot for production (France takes that crown), it does – as you’d expect from an agricultural country focused on efficiency – feature the highest density of sugar beet cultivation, at around 5 per cent of arable area.
Sustainability is woven through Dutch sugar beet production. There’s an industry research and extension service, the IRS (Institute for Rational Sugar production), that performs knowledge transfer on best practices such as agronomy techniques and new, higher-yielding varieties. Harvested beets are often transported by boat, to reduce carbon emissions. And the Netherlands’ famed agri-food research institute, Wageningen University, is working on projects to see how beets can be used for more than the 20 per cent sugar they contain: they see the leftover pulp as an opportunity to extract valuable feedstocks for the chemicals industry, in due course supplanting oil and other fossil fuels.
It’s a receptive sector into which to pitch the FertiGlobal Total Crop Management approach: IRS itself promotes the concept that ‘only a healthy crop can guarantee [its] profitable cultivation and processing’. Again, we’ve been working with our partner – which influences about 30 per cent of the 80,000 beet hectares – to validate EnNuVi products for Dutch conditions and practices.
Our selected product, MANTUS, is especially designed to promote leaf development and to keep them healthy. With plentiful, healthy leaves, the plant can maximise photosynthesis to boost sugar production; MANTUS also ensures healthy tubers, where that sugar will be stored until harvest.
As with every FertiGlobal product, MANTUS has its ‘superhero’ powers. When applied to sugar beet, its strengthening of natural defences can help the crop maintain its leaves and foliage when under attack from diseases such as Cercospora.
We’ve already successfully shown how MANTUS can support the action of fungicides in red beet, a related crop. Our work with our partner will seek to replicate and validate those results for sugar beet. Beyond that, we’ve a whole sugar beet crop programme that brings in our other Technologies, to provide the Total Crop Management approach.
One step at a time…
As our reach around the world continues to extend, it’s fascinating to see how different aspects of the FertiGlobal mission are pertinent to the countries in which we’re working. Here in the Netherlands, where they’ve made it their mission to help feed the world alongside such agricultural behemoths as the United States and Brazil, we’re proud to be helping them fulfil their commitment to sustainable agriculture, using fewer harsh chemicals without forsaking healthy crops or productive yields.