They are the 2nd largest exporter of food with just 17M population and have maximized the yield per acre on many types of vegetables, cereals and flowers. What is so unique about their climate and canal system that it can’t be exported as a model to other countries?
In: 18
What’s the source for this data?
Because they’re the second largest by VALUE, not by actual amount.
They are not selling a fuck ton of actual food, they’re selling just a little bit of expensive goods.
1) As mentioned by others, this is agricultural *value*, not amount of food. The Netherlands grows small amounts of very expensive stuff (esp. vegetables, meat, and milk).
2) The Netherlands’s biggest export is *flowers*, about 10% of their total. Flowers are the ultimate high-value agricultural product, and importantly, they are not food.
3) Not yet mentioned: this figure includes *re-exports*. The Netherlands host Europe’s biggest ports. About [25% of their exports](https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/report/downloadreportbyfilename?filename=Exporter%20Guide_The%20Hague_Netherlands_2-13-2019.pdf) are re-exports, stuff like tropical fruits and chocolate, which come in to Rotterdam and Schiphol before being shipped off to France and Germany. The Netherlands didn’t grow them, they just took them off a boat and put them on a truck.
In short, the value of ag exports is a terrible way to measure the food production of a country.
In addition to the other points made in this thread I’d like to give attention to the fact it has become clear that the current state of agriculture in the Netherlands is untenable. Dutch agriculture policy is not in line with EU regulations and is a main contributor to why we are not on track to hit our targets for combating climate change. So while it is true that you can praise the country for it’s relative economic succes when it comes to agricultural exports, please note that the policies that make that possible are now highly controversial and in my prediction, set to be abandoned over the next decade or so. As land becomes more scarce and climate change becomes even more urgent, we won’t be high up in the statistics for long.
When you mostly care about economics and less about nature, it is much easier to increase the value of something
In the 1700s the Dutch engaged in a massively profitable slave trade, where as much as 40% of their economy was linked to slavery in some way. They invested these profits in their own small country and built themselves into a well educated, healthy and wealthy modern society. They now do their best to ignore or suppress those who bring up those they left behind.
For example why is Suriname, which was a part of the Netherlands up until the 1970s gdp 5,000 per capita, while the Netherlands is 55,000?
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