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Yep, you export a lot of nice flowers and vegetables, and import a lot of meat.

This makes fine economic sense in the context of well-functioning system of global trade. But if that system were to shut down and you had to produce all that meat locally... it wouldn't work so well. And the flowers wouldn't make a good replacement.

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Is there more info on how your fao source performed the calculations? The Netherlands is actually a very significant meat exporter (78% of poultry and beef, 95% of calves, and 43% of pork is exported [0]). As a matter of fact, meat is the most valuable export product after flowers.

A lot of the exported animals are first imported, are then held and slaughtered in the Netherlands, and then the meat is exported again for financial gain. So in terms of meat, I'd think they are a caloric exporter but still highly dependent on other countries.

Hence my question: how were the fao numbers calculated?

[0] (Dutch) https://www.trouw.nl/economie/hoe-nederland-uitgroeide-tot-e...

I would imagine that caloric figures would tend to gravitate towards staples, such as wheat, rice and corn, which are high in both calories and in volume consumed.

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