Search

A megacity is like a beast that needs to be fed continuously. How can Beijing meet the needs of its city dwellers? That’s where high-tech agriculture comes in. In the capital’s green belt, Xu Dan and his team are using new techniques to produce vegetables to meet Beijing’s growing demand for food.

The European Carbon Farming project aims to take advantage of a natural process by experimenting with carbon sequestration techniques in agricultural areas. By storing CO2 in the soil, farmers not only improve their own soil, they also help to mitigate climate change – a service other companies are willing to pay for. The Carbon Farming pilot projects connect farmers to partners seeking solutions for their climate goals. By sharing the cost of investment, everybody wins.

Uganda’s population is young, but a high unemployment rate means many young people struggle to build a life for themselves. At the same time, Uganda’s agriculture sector is desperate for practically trained young agripreneurs and labourers. With the average age of farmers around 60, Uganda’s farmers of the future are in high demand. Supported by the government of the Netherlands, NGO AVSI trains young Ugandans to become successful agripreneurs and agricultural employees. 

As a large exporter of agricultural products, the Netherlands has an important role to play in switching to food systems for the future. Read more about alternative proteins in the Netherlands in our new Future Protein NL Magazine.

Scarce resources such as water are increasingly under pressure. New irrigation and fertigation methods can help us make the best of limited water resources and allow farmers to grow more crop per drop. A Dutch-Colombian partnership increases water efficiency in Colombia’s palm oil industry.

Every day, 2,000 hectares of fertile land is lost around the world because of salinisation. Climate change and rising sea levels combined with the production of more food with less water (and often more fertiliser) turns once productive fields into salty, inarable terrain. Finding techniques and technology to prevent or counter this phenomenon increases the sector’s ability to adapt to changes, such as global warming. By combining the knowledge of crop, soil and water management to produce food in saline environments, saline farming increases food security and ensures a year-round income for local farmers. 

We eat more meat and fish than ever. This is partly a result of population growth, but economic development also plays an important role. Animal protein consumption is growing fastest in low and middle-income countries, where incomes and expenditure on food are climbing correspondingly. How can we ensure that people around the world can still continue to eat meat and fish, without exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet?

The United States and the Netherlands are two of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural produce. But to sustainably feed the world, the Netherlands wants to export solutions, instead of just fruit and vegetables. Initiated by sustainable enterprise AppHarvest, public-private partnership Let’s Grow Together aims to develop Kentucky into an AgTech powerhouse.

Singapore is better known for its skyscrapers than its farms. Less than one per cent of the country’s territory is agricultural land, and it imports over 90% of its food. This makes Singapore particularly vulnerable to fluctuations on the world food market. To remedy this, the government wants to boost local food production and has set a goal to produce 30 percent of its nutritional needs locally by 2030. Singaporean-Dutch partnership Urban Farming Partners Singapore (UFPSG) is keen to support this ambitious goal.