Not to talk down the Dutch achievement too much but the quality of statistics used in this article is terrible.<p>Total monetary value of agricultural exports is a terrible way to measure output. It doesn't take into account:
1. Re-exports (Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe)
2. Specialisation in the production of certain goods (i.e. high imports and exports)
3. The high price of agricultural goods in Europe, driven by high trade barriers.
4. Low domestic consumption compared to more populous nations.<p>For a better analysis of the monetary value of Dutch agricultural exports see here: <a href="https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exports-at-record-high" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/03/dutch-agricultural-exp...</a><p>Note for example the 22.5 billion Euros in re-exports of agricultural goods.<p>90% reduction in water usage is also hard to judge without looking at changes in other advanced agricultural nations.<p>It would be more interesting to see the yields per-hectare the Dutch are achieving compared to other advanced agricultural nations.
What is kind of funny is that people here like to pay more for 'organic' food because they think it's more healthy. But what comes from the greenhouse is so lab-grown it's more healthy than anything. Those labs also don't like to use pesticides because it's unhealthy for the workers and plants as well. They use insects to control pests.<p>The only problem with greenhouse food is that it tastes like nothing. A tomato grown on soil has much more taste than grown on water.
Only problem is that dutch vegetables have no taste and are still insane expensive compared to meat (which is also tasteless). So yeah, awesome thinkering and efficiency here, but quality is not there.
"Food Valley"? Oh, come on... they could have done better! How about "Sustenance Valley"? But that brings up a secondary point... a valley?? In Holland??
<i>"A farm atop a former factory in The Hague produces vegetables and fish in a self-sustaining loop: Fish waste fertilizes plants, which filter the water for the fish."</i><p>If people should know something about how diseases & parasites appear and develop is that the existence of exactly this kind of "self-sustaining loop" is <i>the</i> essential part. Even in the outside environment, any given organism bares the risk of taking part in development of a new parasitic creature's life-cycle, but that risk is greatly reduced by having an inconsistent pattern of interaction with other symbiotic creatures. Here the people involved are just asking for it (unless they go out their way to sterilize the substances circulating in that plant-fish loop).
Impressive, to be sure, especially the technical side of things.<p>However I really dislike greenhouses like these for the huge amount of light pollution they cause (speaking as an amateur astronomer). Sure, it probably doesn't matter much in a densely populated area like the Netherlands, but they start to also pop up here in Eastern Europe, in (previously-) dark-sky locations.