Agricultural Case Studies in Developed Countries: Netherlands and USA
Senior 3 · Geography
Agricultural Case Studies in Developed Countries: Netherlands and USA
Lesson 2 of 5
30 min
Let's begin
Fly into Amsterdam on a clear day and the land below looks like a chessboard of glass. Between The Hague and Rotterdam lies the Westland, where thousands of hectares are covered by greenhouses growing tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers and flowers all year round. Further north, in spring, the bulb fields between Haarlem and Leiden turn red, yellow and purple, and on the green polders of Friesland and Holland black-and-white cows graze beside the ditches. Horticulture and dairy farming are the two great types of farming on the polders. What makes them so productive?
Definition
Horticulture: the intensive growing of vegetables, fruit, flowers, bulbs and ornamental plants. Glasshouse (greenhouse) farming: growing crops inside buildings of glass or plastic in which temperature, light, water and nutrients are controlled. Dairy farming: keeping cows to produce milk and milk products such as cheese and butter.
Definition
Hydroponics: growing plants without soil, with their roots in water or an inert material such as rock wool, fed by a nutrient solution. Biological pest control: controlling pests with their natural enemies instead of chemicals. Cooperative: a business owned and run by its members, such as farmers who market their produce together.
Dairy farms cover much of the clay and peat polders of Friesland, North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht. The cool, wet climate grows lush grass for most of the year, and the flat land suits machinery. Most cows are Holstein-Friesians, a black-and-white breed that gives very high milk yields.
Notice that cocoa ranks second although no cocoa grows in the Netherlands: beans are imported, mainly from West Africa, through Amsterdam and processed into cocoa butter, powder and chocolate. Processing adds value, a lesson for cocoa- and coffee-growing countries.
Worked example
Worked example 1: share of exports. In 2025 Dutch agricultural exports totalled €137.5 billion, of which dairy products and eggs were €13.3 billion (CBS). What percentage was dairy and eggs?
13.3 ÷ 137.5 × 100 ≈ 9.7%. Even the largest group is less than a tenth of the total, which shows how varied Dutch farm exports are.
Worked example
Worked example 2: yield per hectare. A glasshouse of 2 ha produces 1,200 tonnes of tomatoes in a year, while an open field of 5 ha produces 300 tonnes. Compare the yields per hectare. (Illustrative figures.)
Glasshouse: 1,200 ÷ 2 = 600 t/ha. Open field: 300 ÷ 5 = 60 t/ha. The glasshouse yields ten times more per hectare, but it costs far more in buildings, energy and skill.
Warning
Do not confuse horticulture with dairy farming. Horticulture is about plants (vegetables, fruit, flowers, bulbs); dairy farming is about milk. In the Netherlands they occupy different areas: glasshouses and bulbs near the coast and cities, dairy on the grassy clay and peat polders.
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources: glasshouse vegetable production in the Netherlands, part 1. As you watch, note three ways the growers control the crop's environment.
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
