There is a lot of criticism about Herenboeren initiatives though:
- The lack of knowledge (or wilful ignorance) results in them not requesting permits like other farmers have to, resulting in frustrated neighbours and a bad reputation.
- The lack of knowledge (or plain arrogance) results in trying to turn soil that is unsuitable for vegetable cultivation into vegetable gardens, resulting in failed harvests and wasted money. It's fine to experiment, but throwing money away while well meaning neighbouring farmers are proactively giving you all information you need to know is something else entirely.
- Some farmers that are employed by the communities are frustrated because of endless meetings and politics.
- Like with a lot of homesteading initiatives, the end goal often seems to be make money on rent and knowledge sharing and not creating a sustainable business based on produce. The same goes for Youtube channels of people promoting the lifestyle. Without ad money it's unsustainable.
Overall my gut feeling is that initiatives like these will only result in glorified allotment gardens and it will never be able to achieve its goal of reinventing food production.
It would be way better to let existing farmers incorporate better practices at scale.
I was not aware of this criticism. I also do not know if the expressed criticism is valid for every farming co-op. The one I am involved with is working in close cooperation with the local government. Even the planting plans are agreed upon with the local government from which the lands are leased.
The farmers I have talked with seem knowledgable and one of them has been running her own biological farm for 29 years.
I am not sure whether it can compete with commercial farming. At the start of year a bio-deversity measurement was performed at which at three places one square meter was examined. I understand that only one earthworm was found. This year, a lot of rye was sown (together with flowers) in order to improve the quality of the soil. I understand that soil improvement is a slow process and needs many years.
From what I hear in the news, I understand that food production in the Netherlands is strongly influenced by big agracultural companies (who focus on scaling up and reducing the number of farmers) and that farmers who want to transition to biological farming often experience a lot of resistance from banks.
Herenboeren doesn't have to compete with commercial farming directly. It only has to be good enough that participants are willing to join, which they are. So the overall deal needs to be attractive enough.
And we have several important advantages. If there's a small piece of scab on an apple or a single harvest of beans fail, it is generally not a problem for us, whereas these things are problematic to regular farmers. Furthermore, we don't have to deal with supermarkets setting prizes and with logistics.
Our 'customers' pay upfront and each month so the income is very steady - there is generally a waiting list for these farms. Finally, the farm(ers) are supported by a national network of specialists and advisors.
I believe these advantages allow us to potentially outperform commercial farmers, although it might not make sense at all to compare the operations.
Herenboeren Usseler Es is working together with the ITC institute of the University of Twente in a project that is called 'Developing climate smart water management in agriculture on a farm run by citizens' [1]. For this project a weather station has been installed. At two locations sensors have been installed to measure the humidity in the soil at various depths. Remote sensing techniques have been used to measure crop rates. For a short video (in Dutch) about this, see [2]. The ITC is the former International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation that from 1 januari 2010 has been incorporated by the University of Twente.
Do you have some source of this criticism? I am also a member of one of these initiatives, and I imagine a lot depends on the specific cooperative. Is this coming from your personal experience?
> The lack of knowledge (or wilful ignorance) results in them not requesting permits like other farmers have to, resulting in frustrated neighbours and a bad reputation.
Don't recognize that at all with my farm, we spent 3+ years getting permits before we were even allowed to start farming (on an existing farm!). But who knows.
> The lack of knowledge (or plain arrogance) results in trying to turn soil that is unsuitable for vegetable cultivation into vegetable gardens, resulting in failed harvests and wasted money. It's fine to experiment, but throwing money away while well meaning neighbouring farmers are proactively giving you all information you need to know is something else entirely.
First of all I don't think its a good look to assume malice based on one case (wilful ignorance, plain arrogance) and generalize that to the whole movement.
A lot of the farmers are actually reasonably well educated and knowledgeable, but a mixed farm such as this is a very complex operation. A lot of regular farmers specialize in a handful of crops, or in animals, or in trees. But mixing 50+ crops with animals and an orchard _and_ dealing with volunteers and a cooperatively owned farm: this is no piece of cake. So, for sure there will be mistakes.
However, I don't recognize this at all at my farm, even in the first year we had an abundant harvest and we are just getting started.
> Like with a lot of homesteading initiatives, the end goal often seems to be make money on rent and knowledge sharing and not creating a sustainable business based on produce. The same goes for Youtube channels of people promoting the lifestyle. Without ad money it's unsustainable..
This is just wrong. For starters, it is not a homesteading initiative! It is real farm on a medium scale, supplying about 500 to 700 people with fresh produce, meat, eggs, fruit and sometimes grains (but mostly grains aren't done). The difference with a 'normal' farm is that the farmer is paid a decent _wage_. The consumers are also the legal owners and bear the risk, not the farmer. There are no supermarket or other middle-men involved. We have a very direct connection with the farmer.
But most importantly, there is no end goal of making money. You can buy a stake in the farm to become co-owner, but the legal contract says you are not allowed to sell it at a profit. We are also forbidden from selling the food. Any surplus we have we give away to charity.
If we are done producing food to feed ourselves, we can relax, make the operation cheaper, or produce food for the wild animals or whatever. But we can't make money.
I can't stress this enough because this in my opinion is the most important innovation of herenboeren: we collectively fund the (ecological sound) production of our own food, which is the only goal. In fact we have legal precautions in place to block anyone who attempts to make money from this initiative. It is funded by the 500 to 700 owners and this is enough to pay the farmer a living wage, lease the land and run the farm. We just get food out of it, nothing more. This is it, very simple. In a sense, we have taken free market capitalism out of food production. Not completely of course, participants will leave if we don't deliver, but to an interesting degree.
> Overall my gut feeling is that initiatives like these will only result in glorified allotment gardens and it will never be able to achieve its goal of reinventing food production.
You are wrong on several assumptions and at least part of your conclusion as well. It is definitely a real farm, providing real food, to real people. There are now 18 in operation, feeding around 10000 people. There are dozens more in the process of being started. There are problems with the herenboeren concept, but you haven't touched on any in your criticism.
I think reinventing food production is too bold a claim, but it is real, it works and it is here.
> What makes a soil suitable for growing vegetables?
There are many factors. Sand/clay mixture (I think there are other types of "rocks" that make up dirt as well). How much organic matter is in the soil. How much water is available (which in a function of both the above and local rainfall). How loose/compacted the soil is. What temperature the soil is. How deep the various soil layers extend. Fertilizer is good, but different plants need different amounts (2-4-d was developed has fertilizer but it is mostly used as a weed killer) There is probably more that I can't think of. Note that the right soil for one type of vegetable is often wrong for another. There isn't a one size fits all.
> What can we grow in a soil that isn't?
That depends on what you have. Desert soils can grow cactus (add water and they can often grow more). I've seen trees grow in the cracks of rocks.
> Is it possible to transform an unsuitable soil into a good one?
Define good? Do you care about costs? Around me there are a number of places where coal strip mines closed 100 years ago, and the soil was good for a few scatter weeds, the DNR has a grant program to transform those into grass land, and in 3 years that bare ground can support cows but it will be thousands of years before it can grow corn. Global warming will melt permafrost and those areas will then support plants, but they will never support tropical plants (at least not assuming any likely level of global warming). Modern housing developments strip away all the top soil but gardeners often buy enough manure to redevelop the soil into a garden - at great expense. Depending on how you define good you can get very different answers.
As a complete outsider, I found this fascinating series of talks a few years ago that go into great detail on soil for farmers: https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A
- The lack of knowledge (or wilful ignorance) results in them not requesting permits like other farmers have to, resulting in frustrated neighbours and a bad reputation.
- The lack of knowledge (or plain arrogance) results in trying to turn soil that is unsuitable for vegetable cultivation into vegetable gardens, resulting in failed harvests and wasted money. It's fine to experiment, but throwing money away while well meaning neighbouring farmers are proactively giving you all information you need to know is something else entirely.
- Some farmers that are employed by the communities are frustrated because of endless meetings and politics.
- Like with a lot of homesteading initiatives, the end goal often seems to be make money on rent and knowledge sharing and not creating a sustainable business based on produce. The same goes for Youtube channels of people promoting the lifestyle. Without ad money it's unsustainable.
Overall my gut feeling is that initiatives like these will only result in glorified allotment gardens and it will never be able to achieve its goal of reinventing food production.
It would be way better to let existing farmers incorporate better practices at scale.