Dutch tech & VF became a major food exporter

Added on 06 December 2022

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Dutch tech & VF became a major food exporter

The tiny country of the Netherlands has become a leader in developing technology for sustainable farming. Not only is it become a major exporter of food in Europe, it’s also a model for other nations in how to minimize waste and water use, said Laura Reiley, who reports on the business of food for The Washington Post.

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Reiley about Dutch advances in vertical farming and raising crops and livestock with reduced carbon dioxide emissions. Read her story, full of great photos, here. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: OK, so this is a food story. Yes. But really, it’s a technology story. It’s a crazy technology of food story.

Laura Reiley: Absolutely, kind of a shock-and-awe visual smorgasbord.

Ryssdal: Well, tell me how you came upon this story, because we should say up front, you know a little bit about food. I mean, you’ve been a professional chef, you’ve, you know, got awards and all that jazz. And here you’re now reporting on it. What got you into this story?

Reiley: Well, I was riding the coattails of this fabulous Dutch photographer, Kadir van Lohuizen, but he was looking at how this very tiny European country is the second largest exporter of agricultural products by value in the world behind the U.S. So, you know, they’re doing an awful lot of animal raising and vegetable production and seed production on very little land.

Ryssdal: Yeah, we should be clear here, it is across the gamut of ag, right? It is livestock, it is ornamental vegetables and seeds, as you said. It’s, I mean, it’s everything that they’re doing. And they’re doing it on, not to be pejorative here, a relative postage-size stamp of land.