How Does European Agriculture Get Through the Winter? These Technologies Keep Crops Safe Through the Cold Season
Europe's Agricultural Winter Survival Techniques
In late October, Amsterdam had already entered winter prematurely under the howling west wind. On such cold days, tomato grower Joos van Meer, like other fruit and vegetable producers, must also endure the equally "chilling" sales market.
"Overall, this year is not a good year. On one hand, demand is shrinking; on the other hand, tomato supply is rising. Many small farmers have run into difficulties," Joos said with concern. For producers of other everyday consumer goods, times are equally hard.
The anger of European dairy farmers over falling prices has been translated into 230 million euros in subsidies provided by the EU, but Joos does not expect to receive the same treatment as the dairy farmers.
Over the past more than 40 years, subsidized agriculture has been one of the hallmarks of EU agriculture. But while the EU Common Agricultural Policy has protected the development of EU agriculture, it has also exposed some drawbacks. The biggest problem is that agricultural subsidy policies lead farmers to blindly expand production, causing severe overcapacity and distorting the price transmission mechanism.
When this round of crisis arrived, European agriculture, already deep in deficit, could no longer provide 230 million euros in subsidies to every agricultural sector. At this point, market-oriented agriculture, which had originally stood outside subsidized agriculture, was instead more likely to emerge from the crisis ahead of the rest.
Flexible Market-Oriented Agriculture
The fruit and vegetable growing industry Joos is in is market-oriented agriculture, and many agricultural categories in the Netherlands, where he is based, are also representatives of European market-oriented agriculture.
"There are no subsidies because we have sufficient market competitiveness. The Netherlands' agricultural production efficiency has always been above the EU average. Our technological strength and market strategy should help us get through the hard times," Joos told a CBN reporter.
But as for how to get through the winter, producers in market-oriented agriculture of course "each rely on their own special talents."
Joos casually picked up a small bag of beautifully packaged small fruit tomatoes and told the reporter that this was the main variety they had chosen this year, and its sales had already been rolled out across supermarkets throughout the Netherlands.
"The employment slump caused by the economic crisis has given people more time to stay idle at home. They have more time to eat snacks, but they also need to control spending. Small fruit tomatoes exactly meet this need," Joos explained his business philosophy to the reporter.
The shrewd Joos also strictly controls the volume released onto the local market. Once he feels there is some oversupply, he quickly puts the surplus tomatoes onto markets outside the Netherlands to avoid price declines.
Similar to the fruit and vegetable growing industry, the Dutch flower production industry, also part of market-oriented agriculture, needs to survive in difficult conditions. According to 2007 statistics from the Dutch Flower Association, the Netherlands' largest export destination country for cut flowers was Germany, with the United Kingdom and France second and third respectively. Since the top three export destinations were all among the areas hardest hit by this financial crisis, in 2008 the Netherlands' cut flower export value to all three countries saw negative growth.
On October 13, the annual Dutch International Horticultural Exhibition opened in Amsterdam. Exhibition chairman Wim van der Loo told reporters that about 740 exhibitors came this year, only slightly more than last year, but still not comparable to previous years.
Facing the harsh environment, professional flower-growing companies have already been implementing countermeasures. The Dutch company Anthura is a seedling cultivation company focused on two varieties, anthurium and phalaenopsis, and its cut-flower anthurium varieties account for about 80% of the world market share. A staff member of the company told a CBN reporter that, in addition to relying on larger-scale marketing activities, they have already been cultivating smaller anthurium varieties, which can increase the number of plants grown per unit area for flower farmers, helping them cope with falling prices by increasing output.
Yearning for the Chinese Market
In addition to agricultural producers saving themselves, European agricultural associations will also actively carry out marketing activities. "Because future sales expectations have been lowered, growers have already compressed flower production, so you will see that the growth rate of flower production this year has already slowed."
The head of the Dutch Flower Association told a CBN reporter, "Current flower producers have become increasingly professional, and therefore increasingly need market strategies. What we need to do next year is carry out a large number of marketing activities in 14 EU countries."
Since the middle of the year, more and more economic indicators have shown that the global economy has passed its worst point, and overseas agricultural sales were the first to rebound. A Dutch tulip bulb exporter told a CBN reporter that although prices are currently very low, exports of bulbs outside the EU are now in short supply, and demand growth in commercial flowers in Asian markets such as China and Japan is very rapid. Cheap bulb prices have stimulated overseas flower farmers to make purchases.
There also seem to be some signs of improvement in the EU internal market. Greenco, the growing company where Joos works, sold 60 tonnes of tomatoes in the first week of October, and sales in the second week were to reach 140 tonnes, both setting record highs for the same period in history.
However, not many growers can get through the difficulties as smoothly as Joos. In Dutch market-oriented agricultural production, there are a large number of family farms or orchards. The inertia of operations passed down through several generations makes it difficult for them to quickly change product structure and sales strategies, so market-oriented production also means facing market-oriented elimination.
Of course, from the perspective of long-term development, just as manufacturing shifted from developed countries to developing countries, the methods by which European market-oriented agriculture fights the crisis also include the transfer of factors of production.
"Now some technology-based growing companies have already moved their production bases abroad. For example, Anthura has also established a horticulture company in Kunming, China," Roland, chief representative of the Kunming office of the Netherlands Council for Trade Promotion, told a CBN reporter. "But some family farms, because of the inertia of their operations, find it very difficult to move to places with lower costs."
Not only the Netherlands; France's foie gras production is also gradually shifting to third-party countries. This shows the trend of European agriculture globally allocating factors of production after gaining core competitiveness.
But once technology transfer is involved, Wim said, what he worries about most is whether intellectual property rights can be effectively protected. This is also a concern that many European modern agricultural producers raised to reporters at the exhibition.
Around cultivation, there are also a large number of newly developed engineering, mechanical, biological and electronic technologies, and technology transfer has also become a way for manufacturers to transfer production. Frans Otten, chairman of Lemnis Lighting, told reporters that they hope to introduce LED lighting technology already applied in greenhouses into China and find Chinese partners to jointly develop the market for public utility lighting.
Otten said confidently: "The urbanization planned by the Chinese government over the next 50 years will further expand the existing market, so every company with advantages will find its market."
"Overall, this year is not a good year. On one hand, demand is shrinking; on the other hand, tomato supply is rising. Many small farmers have run into difficulties," Joos said with concern. For producers of other everyday consumer goods, times are equally hard.
The anger of European dairy farmers over falling prices has been translated into 230 million euros in subsidies provided by the EU, but Joos does not expect to receive the same treatment as the dairy farmers.
Over the past more than 40 years, subsidized agriculture has been one of the hallmarks of EU agriculture. But while the EU Common Agricultural Policy has protected the development of EU agriculture, it has also exposed some drawbacks. The biggest problem is that agricultural subsidy policies lead farmers to blindly expand production, causing severe overcapacity and distorting the price transmission mechanism.
When this round of crisis arrived, European agriculture, already deep in deficit, could no longer provide 230 million euros in subsidies to every agricultural sector. At this point, market-oriented agriculture, which had originally stood outside subsidized agriculture, was instead more likely to emerge from the crisis ahead of the rest.
Flexible Market-Oriented Agriculture
The fruit and vegetable growing industry Joos is in is market-oriented agriculture, and many agricultural categories in the Netherlands, where he is based, are also representatives of European market-oriented agriculture.
"There are no subsidies because we have sufficient market competitiveness. The Netherlands' agricultural production efficiency has always been above the EU average. Our technological strength and market strategy should help us get through the hard times," Joos told a CBN reporter.
But as for how to get through the winter, producers in market-oriented agriculture of course "each rely on their own special talents."
Joos casually picked up a small bag of beautifully packaged small fruit tomatoes and told the reporter that this was the main variety they had chosen this year, and its sales had already been rolled out across supermarkets throughout the Netherlands.
"The employment slump caused by the economic crisis has given people more time to stay idle at home. They have more time to eat snacks, but they also need to control spending. Small fruit tomatoes exactly meet this need," Joos explained his business philosophy to the reporter.
The shrewd Joos also strictly controls the volume released onto the local market. Once he feels there is some oversupply, he quickly puts the surplus tomatoes onto markets outside the Netherlands to avoid price declines.
Similar to the fruit and vegetable growing industry, the Dutch flower production industry, also part of market-oriented agriculture, needs to survive in difficult conditions. According to 2007 statistics from the Dutch Flower Association, the Netherlands' largest export destination country for cut flowers was Germany, with the United Kingdom and France second and third respectively. Since the top three export destinations were all among the areas hardest hit by this financial crisis, in 2008 the Netherlands' cut flower export value to all three countries saw negative growth.
On October 13, the annual Dutch International Horticultural Exhibition opened in Amsterdam. Exhibition chairman Wim van der Loo told reporters that about 740 exhibitors came this year, only slightly more than last year, but still not comparable to previous years.
Facing the harsh environment, professional flower-growing companies have already been implementing countermeasures. The Dutch company Anthura is a seedling cultivation company focused on two varieties, anthurium and phalaenopsis, and its cut-flower anthurium varieties account for about 80% of the world market share. A staff member of the company told a CBN reporter that, in addition to relying on larger-scale marketing activities, they have already been cultivating smaller anthurium varieties, which can increase the number of plants grown per unit area for flower farmers, helping them cope with falling prices by increasing output.
Yearning for the Chinese Market
In addition to agricultural producers saving themselves, European agricultural associations will also actively carry out marketing activities. "Because future sales expectations have been lowered, growers have already compressed flower production, so you will see that the growth rate of flower production this year has already slowed."
The head of the Dutch Flower Association told a CBN reporter, "Current flower producers have become increasingly professional, and therefore increasingly need market strategies. What we need to do next year is carry out a large number of marketing activities in 14 EU countries."
Since the middle of the year, more and more economic indicators have shown that the global economy has passed its worst point, and overseas agricultural sales were the first to rebound. A Dutch tulip bulb exporter told a CBN reporter that although prices are currently very low, exports of bulbs outside the EU are now in short supply, and demand growth in commercial flowers in Asian markets such as China and Japan is very rapid. Cheap bulb prices have stimulated overseas flower farmers to make purchases.
There also seem to be some signs of improvement in the EU internal market. Greenco, the growing company where Joos works, sold 60 tonnes of tomatoes in the first week of October, and sales in the second week were to reach 140 tonnes, both setting record highs for the same period in history.
However, not many growers can get through the difficulties as smoothly as Joos. In Dutch market-oriented agricultural production, there are a large number of family farms or orchards. The inertia of operations passed down through several generations makes it difficult for them to quickly change product structure and sales strategies, so market-oriented production also means facing market-oriented elimination.
Of course, from the perspective of long-term development, just as manufacturing shifted from developed countries to developing countries, the methods by which European market-oriented agriculture fights the crisis also include the transfer of factors of production.
"Now some technology-based growing companies have already moved their production bases abroad. For example, Anthura has also established a horticulture company in Kunming, China," Roland, chief representative of the Kunming office of the Netherlands Council for Trade Promotion, told a CBN reporter. "But some family farms, because of the inertia of their operations, find it very difficult to move to places with lower costs."
Not only the Netherlands; France's foie gras production is also gradually shifting to third-party countries. This shows the trend of European agriculture globally allocating factors of production after gaining core competitiveness.
But once technology transfer is involved, Wim said, what he worries about most is whether intellectual property rights can be effectively protected. This is also a concern that many European modern agricultural producers raised to reporters at the exhibition.
Around cultivation, there are also a large number of newly developed engineering, mechanical, biological and electronic technologies, and technology transfer has also become a way for manufacturers to transfer production. Frans Otten, chairman of Lemnis Lighting, told reporters that they hope to introduce LED lighting technology already applied in greenhouses into China and find Chinese partners to jointly develop the market for public utility lighting.
Otten said confidently: "The urbanization planned by the Chinese government over the next 50 years will further expand the existing market, so every company with advantages will find its market."