Making farming in the Netherlands more sustainable

Farming on a large scale means business. Farmers develop cropping systems to manage crops, crop sequences and management techniques. These systems are deployed over large areas of arable land over a period of years. If one seeks to make complicated processes like intensive farming more sustainable, one must understand which factors hinder and which enable such a transition. This is what the new research project “CropMix” aims to achieve. TU/e scientists Duygu Keskin, Annelies Bobelyn and Sonja Rohmer are part of this new Dutch research consortium, led by WUR.

CropMix

“Designing mixed cropping systems and transition paths towards sustainable ecology based agriculture” (CropMix) – investigates and implements the transition from intensive farming methods in the Netherlands to more sustainable methods. The cross-disciplinary research team will develop new knowledge about the ecological principles that make crop systems sustainably productive. It will also  identify socio-economic and societal factors that hinder or enable the transition to crop-diversity-based agricultural systems.

Duygu, Annelies and Sonja will focus on logistics & supply chain modelling and business & value chain modelling. They will also contribute to stakeholder engagement, citizen science, Living Labs and the effective communication and dissemination of project results.

Diverse research consortium

The research consortium includes WUR, TUDelft, University of Groningen, Aeres Hogeschool, Avans Applied University, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and HAS University of Applied Sciences. More than 40 farming businesses/SME’s in the AgriFood sector are involved alongside several government ministries and a cluster of industrial partners from retail, banking and leisure sectors.

The diversity of the consortium and the ecosystem involved ensures that the results can be implemented across all value chains from the agricultural sector.

More information on the CropMix website