AgriFood

The world-renowned Wageningen University has established a Dairy Campus in the Northern Netherlands. At the Dairy Campus, located in the city of Leeuwarden, we share state-of-the-art research & development, knowledge and education to spur innovation and improve the dairy industry around the world.

• The Dutch high-quality pasture, with ideal quality and quantity of grass, together with the optimal use of spaces, supports a higher density of healthy cows than anywhere else in the world.
• Our healthy cows produce exceptional, nutrient-rich milk and high lifetime yield.Optimized timing and frequency of pregnancies and lactations results in happier cows, producing a higher yield of better quality milk over their lifetime.

• Our dairy farmers utilize specialized technologies which can identify problems and opportunities to optimize performance at the earliest possible moment.
• Highest quality dairy is ‘Made in Holland’. Dutch milk companies protect their product’s quality by far beyond industry-standard monitoring, in every step in the process of the production chain, minimizing risk of contamination and losses.

The TopDutch region provides direct access to a suitably-skilled workforce. Together with favorable government policies, fiscal climate and geographic and geo-political positioning, we enable every business in the chain to thrive.

• Lifelines Healthy Ageing research, in the TopDutch region, are performing the largest and longest intergenerational healthy ageing research in the world. Lifelines is the region’s unique research cohort and biobank, collecting samples and data from 167,000 participants from the region, for over 30 years. This unique data- and biobank provides researchers and companies (among others) insight into the effects of diet and nutrition on people’s health and ageing process.
• Lifelines ‘10K Metagenome Project’ studies the gut flora of 10,000 Lifelines participants in a metagenomics analysis, involving analyzing the intestinal bacteria in feces samples. By metagenome sequencing, the project will examine the composition of bacteria, their function and learn how intrinsic facts and exogenous factors correlate with changes in the gut flora. This knowledge is the first step towards new ways of preventing or treating diseases on the basis of intestinal bacteria.

In the TopDutch region we have many research and development facilities and innovation communities developing useful nutritional value from a wide variety of crops that support healthy ageing. By extracting dietary building blocks from crops we develop new and advanced nutrition.

Besides the food we consume in our diet, our health is being affected by our environment. In the TopDutch region we are dedicated to sustainable farming; protecting biodiversity, land, seed and crop quality; optimizing processes for sustainability and promoting circularity.

The crops that grow in our agricultural hinterland provide the bio-based economy and our Green Chemistry ecosystem, Chemport Europe, with an abundance of green building blocks. We are able to extract valuable chemical building blocks, such as sugars, starches, glucose, carbohydrates and lignin from sugar beets, potatoes, woodchips and even shrimp shells. We produce and recycle green packaging materials for the food industry and produce bio-methanol from wasted biomass.

Our farms have become energy producers instead of energy consumers. Agricultural waste is used as feedstock for green gas and bio-energy.

Cross-linked with our Digital Innovation ecosystem, we develop new technologies such as soil sensor systems, smart dairy farming technologies and technologies that perform calibration measurements to optimize the performance of our cultivation and greenhouses.

Cross-linked with our WaterTech innovation chain, we develop water recycling and resource recovery solutions for the AgriFood industry.

Together with regional Healthy Ageing and Life Sciences & Health research partners we unfold protein structures in food for advanced antibiotics research and we research healthy nutrition at our Carbohydrate Competence Center (CCC) and Food Circle.

 In the TopDutch region we are able to extract valuable proteins from potatoes, peas, beans, vegetables, seeds and other crops. Although today most proteins consumed are still animal-based, from protein rich dairy and meat, we see a strong shift in demand for plant-based proteins in the industry and consumer market. Our AgriFood industry is more and more providing these plant-based proteins in large quantities to accelerate the protein transition.

Wageningen University & Research (WUR), which has two specialized facilities in the TopDutch region, namely its DairyCampus and Field Crops test location.

• We’re accelerating the development of a healthy and sustainable economy and supporting innovation in many industry cross-overs:
  Research campus locations:
  Campus Groningen: Healthy Ageing and Zernike Campus
• DairyCampus
• WaterCampus

Food innovation communities:

• Holland Dairy Valley
• PotatoValley
• Carbohydrate Competence Center (CCC)
• Food Circle
• Water Alliance

Pilot facilities:

• Food Application Center for Technology (FACT)
• Innolab AgriFood and Innolab Chemistry
• Zernike Advance Processing (ZAP)
• Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials (ZIAM)

• Proximity to market with 170 million customers within a 500 km radius, representing 60% of the EU’s purchasing capacity and 244 million consumers within 1,000 km.
• A dense highway and railway network are positioned directly on three out of the nine major corridors of the Trans-European Transport Network and connect the Netherlands to all European market.

• The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of agricultural products worldwide. Total value of AgriFood exports of the Netherlands amounted to 652 billion USD in 2018, approximately 3.7% of total food exports worldwide.
• The Netherlands is one of the largest exporters in seeds, approximately 40% of all vegetable seeds are from the Netherlands.
• The Netherlands is the best overall performer in trade facilitation worldwide, because of our pro-business attitude, and its speedy transshipment of goods with low risk of delays.
  The Netherlands has the best VAT regime in the European Union. The Netherlands scores 14/14 on the Deloitte VAT index of 2016. Our companies experience a considerable cash flow advantage and low administrative burden because of the Dutch VAT system offering VAT deferment at import.

• The TopDutch region educates excellently, to different levels. A network of the world’s best research universities, universities of applied sciences, vocational education institutions and dedicated research and innovation communities educate talent within the region.
• The TopDutch region welcomes international AgriFood talent. The largest global AgriFood companies with production and R&D facilities in the region, and our excellent research and innovation communities attract the best talent from around the globe.