Organic Food for Thought: How Larger Countries Can Learn from Smaller Export Countries When it Comes to Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

This paper looks in detail on the Netherlands specifically as the second largest food exporter behind the United States. It looks at how this small country accomplished this feat through sustainable agriculture while producing twice the amount of food with the half the amount of resources. It looks at the current environmental problems that the world faces today and proposes a solution through the framework of the Netherlands agricultural model. It goes in detail on the specific problems the world faces including water scarcity, overpopulation, dependency on fertilizers and pesticides and the Dutch solutions to these specific problems. The paper also delves into the history of the division in the Western world over organic and sustainable agriculture. It looks at how this division allowed a cultural atmosphere to flourish that encouraged new and innovative approaches to farming. This paper also compares the Netherlands to huge agricultural producers like China and the United States and scrutinizes their farming policies. It proposes that the Netherlands could gain more economic power through the needs of these producers to sustain their growth through imports and how they could threaten the export power of these large countries.