"The Netherlands, which has only 220,000 farmers, generated $82 billion in agricultural exports in 2015; China has 220 million agricultural laborers, but its agricultural products are $11 billion less than those of the Netherlands in the same period, and the agricultural trade deficit is more than $40 billion. ”
Yao Jingyuan, former chief economist of the National Bureau of Statistics and special researcher of the Counsellors' Office of the State Council, recently described the gap between China's agriculture and that of the Netherlands at a public conference.
The Netherlands is only half the size of mainland Chongqing, but it is the world's second-largest agricultural exporter after the United States. How did this small European country create an agricultural miracle?
Mr. Tie Ding, a well-known regional public brand expert of agricultural products, director of the Agricultural Research Center of Yuanyi Think Tank, and editor-in-chief of agricultural ginseng, once concluded that "high quality and high price" should go through three stages: first, high quality and high price; second, the formation of cooperatives; Third, promote the industry. And it is necessary to readjust the structure by driving farmers, growers, and industries.
The development of agriculture in the Netherlands is inseparable from its strong family farm cooperative system and mature contract farming mechanism, which are all advanced experiences that can be learned from family farms in the context of small farmers in the mainland.
1. From "land reclamation" to intensive agricultural production
The Netherlands has a land area of 4. 150,000 square kilometers. With a population of more than 15.5 million, it is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. And in terms of geographical location, it is located in the north of Western Europe, facing the North Sea of the Atlantic Ocean, in the lower estuary area of the Maas, Rhine and Scheldt rivers, and about 1/4 of the country's land area is below average sea level, and the terrain is very low.
With a small land, a large population, and the constant danger of rising sea levels, the Netherlands' agricultural resources can be said to have the inherent advantages of large-scale agricultural production. However, it is in this historical context that the Netherlands has put forward the slogan of "double the food production with half the resources", aiming for ecological, efficient and sustainable agriculture.
With the continuous development of Dutch industry, during the 17th and 19th centuries, the Netherlands continued to study the technology of reclamation from the sea, and created more than 7,000 square kilometers of land in 700 years, equivalent to one-fifth of the country's land area. What used to be river beaches and tidal flats has been transformed into nearly 10 million acres of fertile land.
With the expansion of the land area, the Netherlands has focused on improving the productivity of agriculture. In the 50s of the 20th century, the Dutch government promulgated the "Land Consolidation Law", and the "Spatial Planning Law" passed thereafter made detailed provisions on the consolidation of agricultural land in rural society, making it clear that every piece of land in the village must be used in accordance with the provisions of the law.
In order to increase output on the basis of limited resources, most of the agricultural production bases in the Netherlands adopt a specialized and intensive production model, which can improve efficiency and reduce costs, and can also facilitate the unification of agricultural facilities and realize the overall management of resources across the country.
When it comes to growing crops, the Netherlands takes it to the extreme. The government has formulated agricultural development strategies and policies according to the climatic conditions of the country, such as encouraging farmers to avoid the production of cereal crops that require a lot of sunlight and low production and marketing prices, and make full use of the advantages of flat terrain and abundant forage resources to vigorously develop animal husbandry, dairy and high value-added flower and horticultural crops, so as to lead the development of agriculture with special characteristics.
2. Ecology and efficiency: ask for answers from science and technology
How efficient is agricultural production in the Netherlands?
The global average potato yield is about 9 tonnes/ha; According to 2021 data, the average potato yield in China is about 5 tonnes/ha. On an average family farm in the Netherlands, the yield of potatoes can easily reach 20 tonnes per ha.
This "agricultural miracle" is made possible by the Netherlands' world-leading agricultural technology.
Greenhouse agriculture in the Netherlands is well known all over the world, and after years of development, the structure has become very mature. Red Harvest Farm, for example, was built in 2009 and has a typical Venlo all-glass greenhouse, which has a high ridge height to meet the needs of the greenhouse's hanging line cultivation system and maintain a stable indoor environment. In addition, the area of a single greenhouse in the Netherlands is generally large, which is convenient for large-scale and mechanized management while increasing the buffer capacity.
In the greenhouse, the digital automatic control system is adopted to automatically monitor, record and regulate the environmental factors such as light, temperature, humidity, pest control and other factors in the greenhouse, which greatly improves the yield and quality of crops and forms a huge competitive advantage in the agricultural industry in the world.
Technology not only brings high yields, but also precise, environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable agriculture. Organic agriculture accounts for 7.4% of the total area in the Netherlands, about 0.6% in the United States, and 0.4% in China.
Facility farming in the Netherlands has been able to achieve precise pest management, which has led to a significant reduction in the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Dutch automatic drip irrigation technology not only allows precise irrigation of crops at different times, but also adjusts the amount of water supplied throughout the day according to the sun's rays.
In terms of pest and disease prevention, Dutch greenhouse agriculture adheres to an ecological control system based on temperature and beneficial insects, with biological control as the mainstay, supplemented by physical control and chemical control. Taking Red Harvest greenhouse tomato production as an example, the main insect pest control objects are whitefly, leafminer fly, aphid, etc., and whitefly is controlled by natural enemies such as blind bugs and aphid wasps. Leaf miner flies are controlled by the small wasp of the leaf miner fly; Blue plate is used to control thrips, and yellow plate is used to control whiteflies and aphids.
Physical control is the use of special materials to reduce pests and diseases, such as the use of rock wool as a production substrate for Dutch tomato production. Because rock wool is made of rock through high-temperature melting and drawing, compared with other substrates, it is lightweight, porous, and free of pests and diseases, which effectively avoids the occurrence of soil-borne diseases.
At the same time, Dutch farms have established a monitoring and early warning mechanism to detect the real-time growth of crops through big data, and if there are too many pests in a certain area, chemical prevention methods are considered to ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products.
In addition, the greenhouse is generally equipped with labor-saving equipment systems such as picking operation vehicles, lifting rail vehicles, and transportation operation vehicles, which further improves the operation efficiency of workers. Professional hardware equipment and sophisticated database technology have made the greenhouse agriculture in the Netherlands rise rapidly.
3. "Family Farm + Cooperative" is the essence of Dutch agriculture
In addition to the innovation of production technology, Dutch agriculture has its own unique characteristics in terms of organization and policy care. In particular, the agricultural production system, with family farms and cooperatives as the core units, has become an important component of Dutch agriculture.
The outstanding characteristics of Dutch family farms are the high specialization of agricultural production, the increasing scale of operation, the family-oriented agricultural production, the integration of business organizations and cooperatives, the intensive and ecological production methods, and the diversification of farm income sources.
After the enactment of the Land Consolidation Act, the Netherlands adopted a series of measures to improve soil quality, improve rural infrastructure, and promote farm reform and development. According to statistics, in 1996 the total number of farms in the Netherlands was 110,700, of which 91,100 were specialized farms. The average size of each farm is around 18 hectares.
For a large number of family farms, the Netherlands adopted a strategy of "group development", minimizing competition between them, producing agricultural products of almost the same type and quality, without their own brands and trademarks, circulating in the market as the same products, and completing the intensive production of its agricultural products into parts.
In addition, the Netherlands is one of the earliest countries in the world to develop cooperatives, with a development history of more than 150 years, and strong stability, and the supporting and leading role of agricultural development continues to increase. Due to the long-term operation of the market economy system, the strong sense of contract makes the farmers who join the cooperatives less likely to engage in short-term speculation, and rarely sell agricultural products privately without abiding by the sales contracts with the cooperatives, thus bringing the family farms closer to the cooperatives and promoting the stable development of the cooperatives.
There are two main sources of income for family farms in the Netherlands: one is the income from the sale of agricultural products produced by family farms, which is the main source of income; The second is the income obtained by family farms from joining the integrated industrial chain organization model of cooperatives, mainly including cash dividends, bond dividends and bond interest, which is an important guarantee for the sustainable growth of family farm income
The marketization of modern agriculture in the Netherlands is mainly manifested in the fact that the market is related to each farmer, and the import and export of agricultural products are carried out around the processing and value-added of agricultural products, and an efficient and perfect agricultural product marketing system has been established, which makes Dutch agricultural products more competitive in the international market. Agricultural cooperatives and other cooperative organizations unite individual agricultural producers and managers to enter the market with a high degree of organization, so as to enhance their professional level of production and sales and market competitiveness. According to 2010 statistics, the cooperatives had a market share of 100% in the sugar and starch potato sectors, while in the flowers, dairy products, and vegetables and fruits, the cooperatives had a market share of 95%, 86% and 95% respectively.
In addition, the developed, efficient and coordinated agricultural knowledge innovation and dissemination system, the inclusive rural financial system, and the perfect, efficient and convenient agricultural socialized service system also give the Dutch farms more room for growth and play, and better connect with the socialized market, so that their legitimate rights and economic interests can be better protected.
Although the Netherlands is a small European country, it has created the world's "agricultural miracle", and one of the important reasons is the development and growth of viable family farms.
The agricultural production mode of the Netherlands is very similar to the economic environment of smallholder farmers in the mainland, and the development experience of family farms in the Netherlands has a strong reference significance for many new agricultural operators in the mainland.
First of all, it is necessary to fully grasp the basic operating characteristics of family farms, persist in taking "family" and "agriculture" as the key starting points, take moderately large-scale operation as the basis, intensive production and ecological production as the means, and match the development plan with the local environmental resources.
Secondly. As a less resilient business unit, family farms are more dependent on policy support, and the experience of the Netherlands also shows that a necessary condition for the development of family farms is to have systematic institutional support. The agricultural financial subsidy system is a strong backing, the agricultural knowledge and scientific and technological innovation system is an important propeller, and the ecological environmental protection system and the agricultural product quality and safety system are important barriers.
Market and policy are the two major aspects that drive the transformation of agricultural modernization, only by docking with a larger market, agriculture can achieve value transformation, and appropriate policies to give a good living environment for new agricultural business entities.
At present, there are about 19.35 million professional farming households and 3.9 million family farms on the mainland. In the future, the integrated development of family farms and farmers' cooperatives will continue to enhance the important role of family farms in strengthening farmers and rich farmers, and create an "agricultural miracle" belonging to China.