Sustainability and the use of natural resources has been a topic of global discussion for well over a decade.
Estimates are that the total world population will grow from today’s 7.5 billion to a staggering 10 billion by 2050. “The challenge we are facing here?” says Ernst van den Ende, Managing Director of the Plant Sciences Group at the Dutch Wageningen University & Research. “To put it in bluntly apocalyptic terms, the planet must produce more food in the next four decades than all farmers have harvested over the past 8,000 years.”
The innovative Dutch approach to sustainable agriculture has already lead it to be the world’s number two exporter of food as measured by value today. Compared to the number one, the United States, with 270 times the amount of landmass, it’s quite an achievement. Learn more about how the Dutch farmers make use of high-tech, sustainable farming solutions in this interesting National Geographic article.