Definitely far ahead on the curve on "how to grow things efficiently in a greenhouse", but then there are usually giant heaters next to those..
> Is it really so innovative/sustainable?
Yes. 100% yes.
If you're focused on energy use, the Dutch agricultural sector has been a net producer since 2015. Not all of that is "green", but even where they use gas turbines, they're more efficient than all other forms of fossil energy generation, because both heat and CO2 is put to use.
Wageningen University & Research is consistently ranked the world's #1 agricultural university. The Greenport regions (Westland, Aalsmeer, Venlo) function as innovation clusters where growers, suppliers, breeders, and researchers are physically clustered.
> Half seems to be giant greenhouses and the other half just the same planting the Germans or french do, maybe on larger fields.
Please stop guessing numbers.
It's 4.500 hectares of (food production) greenhouses vs. 1.8 million hectares of areable land.
> Definitely far ahead on the curve on "how to grow things efficiently in a greenhouse", but then there are usually giant heaters next to those..
The greenhouse sector runs gas-fired CHP (combined heat and power) units. They burn natural gas to produce three things at once: heat for the greenhouse, CO2 for the plants, and electricity. The electricity gets sold to the grid when prices are high. By 2015, 30-35% of the Netherlands' grid power came from CHP systems operating in greenhouses.
That's already genuinely impressive. But the interesting shift right now is the move away from CHP towards a combination of electrification, geothermal, and rooftop/internal solar.
Dutch greenhouses achieve world-leading yields by using high-tech systems that produce ten times more than open-field farming. This efficiency is driven by closed-loop water recirculation, precision nutrient dosing, and biological pest control, which reduces chemical use by 97%. These methods allow the Netherlands to remain the world's second-largest agricultural exporter despite its small size.
Open-field Dutch farming is just as exceptional, and for largely the same structural reasons. The environmental pressures are real, but they are also driving much of today’s innovation: variable-rate fertiliser and spot-spraying systems that reduce inputs without reducing yield; mechanical and laser weeding as alternatives to herbicides; strip cropping and pixel farming trials at WUR; precision manure injection; cover cropping and non-inversion tillage becoming more mainstream; and breeding programmes focused on nitrogen-use efficiency and disease resistance to lower both fertiliser and pesticide use.
I could go on and on. There are dozens of research projects in soil preservation as well as regulatory changes.
There are just 51.200 companies in the agricultural sector, but what they achieve is so damned impressive.