Located in the Rhine River estuary delta area, of which 50 percent of land is lower than sea level, and most being poor in resources, the Netherlands worked wonders when it developed a irrigation infrastructure system at a high level with the great estuary and coastal dikes along with a high-tech agriculture among the most competitive, sustainable and efficient in the world. Dutch agriculture has its own special vitality shown by the impressive export figures.
The Netherlands ranks first in export productivity of agricultural products in the world
The Netherlands’ agricultural development has astonished the world. With the area of only 41,548sq.km, arable land area at the lowest level of the world, only 910,000ha, of which the average cultivated area per capita is only 0.058ha per person (the lowest in the world) but the Dutch know how to use the strengths of their flat and fertile land to develop agriculture, and they have gained brilliant achievements. The number of people working in the Netherlands’ agricultural sector accounts for five percent of the population, but the total value of agricultural products make up over ten percent of national economic product.
As a country with small area, the Netherlands is limited in sources of material; therefore, it must import most raw materials for manufacturing industries. However, the special thing is that the Dutch know to use advanced processes and modern farming technology to process imported raw materials into high valued products and to export back to the raw material selling countries or other countries. According to statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Netherlands, its agricultural product exports rank second in the world (accounting for 7.7 percent of global market share), surpassing many agricultural powers, only after the US with the world's ten leading agricultural products, such as cut fresh flowers (accounting for 60 percent of the world flower market share), eggs, onions, barley beer, cheese, condensed milk, potatoes, tomatoes, cocoa oil, cocoa cake, and three export products including chocolate, pork and tobacco take second rank in the world. These are all high-tech agricultural products manufactured with the most modern processes. For years, the Netherlands’ export turnover of agricultural products has ranked after only the US and France, but its effectiveness and competitiveness are highest in the world, which occupies an important part of the country's economic structure. Annual export value per citizen is US$140,600 far surpassing other countries. Export level per unit of cultivated area reached US$18,570 per ha; that is to say this miracle seemed exceptionally unlikely to happen in a country of limited land fund.
The keys to success
Achievements of Dutch agriculture stem from a process of research, investigation and asserting its own comparative advantages to develop basing on export-directing agricultural strategies. Because of the lack of arable land, the Netherlands implements the strategy, "high investment - much production”, “big import, big export" on the basis of best exploitation of the world resources, wide application of achievements in science and engineering, construction and timely adjustment in the production structure towards optimization to ensure high efficiency in the agricultural sector. In particular, the Netherlands knows to leverage its capital and high technology, continuously innovating modes of production and increasing the added value through downstream processing to come to dominate the world market.
In addition, the Netherlands focused on the development of infrastructure and application of high and new achievements of science and technology. Infrastructure is considered material base of the Dutch agricultural miracle for ensuring strong and sustainable agricultural development. For years, the Netherlands has put great effort into building irrigation works and flood prevention systems of world standard. The saltwater barrier at the mouth of the Zuiderzee sea, “continent triangle" construction and Maeslandkering water treatment construction are convincing evidence of the Netherlands’ persistent struggle to conquer nature. Additionally, intricate networks canals protecting rice fields are also an important advantage to ensure that even fields below sea level by four to six meters are still highly productive, which is considered among the wonders of the world.
With small land fund, the Netherlands specializes in applying “land area-increasing technology”, concentrates on application of intensive farming methods, increases yield per unit area to create much more production than the world average yield. In addition, to support this high performance, the Netherlands has established a greenhouse system with the most modern technology, accounting for 25 percent modern technology greenhouses in the world. Greenhouses help save land (even no land use) and completely control natural conditions. Greenhouse equipment is operated by computer systems, production is mechanized and automated in the stages of lighting, watering, fertilizing, spraying, and warming to create a favourable environment which completely eliminates adverse natural elements.
Greenhouse technology constantly renewed. Every five - seven years, there is a new generation of equipment, helping this nation always pioneer the application of scientific achievements and modern technology in production. The Netherlands attaches much importance not only "hard technologies" but also it is interested in "soft technologies" of management and organization to improve the efficiency of hard technology. Information technologies are widely applied in production, animal husbandry and planting flowers which creates a great breakthrough in both areas.
The success of Dutch agriculture is also associated with forms of farms operated in an open and efficient mechanism. This is also the foundation of international competitiveness of Dutch agriculture. A strong point of these farms is the high specialization to make a reasonable division of labour, to increase labour productivity and to improve product quality together with strong support for mechanization and computerization. Farm scale in the Netherlands is increasingly expanding and has become the driving factor of agricultural labour productivity in this country.
Dutch agriculture has made miracles; it important contributions of the government must also be mentioned the. For years, the Dutch government has been supporting farmers through the capture of information, publication, comprehensive broadcasting agriculture and agricultural products from the Netherlands to countries in the world. At the same time, the Netherlands has always focused on building infrastructure systems for agricultural development as well as coping with natural disasters. The Dutch government also strongly concentrated on developing science and technology to serve production, and promotes the transfer of advanced technology to help farmers improve labour productivity. Besides, the government is especially interested in protecting natural resources and the environment, and has often issued specific policies calling for farmers to act positively for a balanced and healthy ecosystem.
Hong Hanh
Vietnamese
