Limburg farmers on circular agriculture

The production of rhubarb is a niche market. The advantage of this is that you quickly become attractive to potential partners, but it also means that there is little opportunity to spar with similar entrepreneurs or to make joint investments. Martin Peeters therefore sought cooperation at the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo for a study into new possibilities with rhubarb. "This was initiated and financed from within our company, in addition to the grant we received for this. This project has brought to light new possibilities with the complete plant. Now we are working to follow up on this."

Farmer Ruud

Ruud and Peter van Dijck are the brothers behind pig farm Boer Ruud in Oirlo, North Limburg. The father of Ruud and Peter was one of the first pig farmers to start working with residual flows. "He was a real pioneer," says Ruud. "I've regularly asked him over the years why he started doing this. His answer was always the same: the world population is growing and that means more and more residual flows that can be put to good use by pigs. The pig is indispensable in our society."

In Ruud's view, the agricultural sector is also a sector par excellence that can contribute to the challenges of the future. "Take for example the local purchase of residual streams. That is a very good way to explain to consumers the role of animals in our food system," says the pig farmer from Limburg. "On our farm we use as few non-natural ingredients as possible for our pig feed and are very concerned with the welfare of the animals."

For example, the company now manages to get about 95 percent of the animals' protein needs from residual streams such as dairy, brewer's yeast, brewers' grains, wheat starch and French fries. "This means we need much less of the Brazilian-sourced soy that was normally used for that," the pig farmer explains.

Van Dijck does stress that the measures must be feasible. Making investments and implementing changes costs a lot of money. The question is whether this is feasible in the longer term. "Calculating a much higher cost price is in any case not an option." Yet Farmer Ruud does not want to be continually preoccupied with the best earnings model. "Contributing to the long term with your business, that's much nicer. That's where the challenge lies."

Looning company Gebroeders de Boer

Rob and Niek de Boer from Lottum are active with their company in tree nursery and garden and arable farming. "We would like to inspire our customers to think like us not only about now, but also about later. For example by stimulating sustainable soil management," says Rob.

But it will have to be done step by step. "It is difficult in our sector to be sustainable or green all at once." So they opted for gradual adjustments, such as the use of a biofilter that filters residual fluids, among other things. "In addition, we have an oil press, where we press rapeseed and sunflowers into oil," the entrepreneur continues. "With GPS-controlled machines we try to avoid double tillage of the soil as much as possible. We have also recently invested in two tire pressure change systems."

This company also sought out collaboration to achieve innovations. The brothers joined Plants 4 Plants, a collaboration between the Limburg Land and Horticulture Association (LLTB) and various local parties. Knowledge in the field of use, cultivation and applications of crops is brought together. An important part is to set up business cases for a new crop flow. "That could be an effective organic matter that improves soil biology," explains De Boer. "We are already well on the way. Soon we will be experimenting with some crops that are new to us."

Your story

Are you also working on the transition to circular agriculture? We are curious about your experiences, pitfalls and successes! Share your story via redactie@kiempunt-limburg.nl.