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Startups are often celebrated as engines of innovation, but their true impact lies in helping society confront urgent global challenges. Startup creativity is shaping industries and economies with people and planet in mind, and the Netherlands is one place where many of these ideas are taking root. 

Farmers play a crucial role in global food security, and now Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help them increase productivity with a happier herd. Meet IDA, the Intelligent Dairy Farmer’s Assistant.

Improving the productivity of smallholder farmers can make a large difference in meeting the ever-growing demand for healthy and nutritious food around the world. In the last four decades, Dutch tropical vegetable seed company East-West Seed (EWS) has provided millions of smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia with high-quality hybrid seeds, improving their productivity and standard of living.

How can we feed a growing world population while lessening the impact on the environment? Mexican-Dutch partnership HortiConnect believes nature itself provides the solutions. HortiConnect combines the power of data and advanced technology to optimise a plant’s natural growing power and resilience.

As food waste accounts for around one third of all food produced for human consumption globally, reducing food loss can contribute significantly to reaching food security. In Ethiopia and Djibouti, Flying Swans is creating a cool logistics network together with local partners.

Contaminated potatoes, expensive pesticides and low crop yields are all things of the past thanks to Netherlands company, Solynta. Their hybrid breeding technique replaces the common potato-tuber with ‘true seeds’.

As the world population grows so does demand for high quality, nutritious food. Farmed fish satisfies growing demand and meets environmental criteria.

With the global population expected to hit 10 billion people by 2050, achieving food security is a major challenge.

To sustainably feed the world’s largest urban areas, we need to bring food production back to the cities. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where large cities are surrounded by sand in almost every direction, climate and geography make this especially challenging. With agricultural technology and seeds from Dutch soil, sandy landscapes can feed some of the world’s largest cities.

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.