An enormous amount of carrots, bins full, threatens to rot away from farmer Jack from Kruisland. After a good harvest – really big: more than two hundred thousand kilos – he doesn’t get the carrots to the man: “If they are not processed within a few weeks, I can let them rot away.”
The carrots that Boer Jack harvested at the end of October are far too much for the current market. A risk that Jack was aware of, because he had no contract with buyers for his roots: “In the Netherlands a lot is grown on contract, with fixed price agreements with buyers. The basis is placed in contracts and the other that buyers need is then purchased on the free market, among other things with me. But the sales are simply very bad this year.”
Jack thinks the enormous surplus of carrots that he now has has to do with unrest on the international trade market. His carrots are made for industrial processing, not for the fresh market. They were mainly intended for export. “I notice that the sales market is changing due to geopolitical tensions such as the war in Ukraine and Trump that, with its import duties, ensures global influence on trade flows. This has made the trade very careful and rough, people dare to take risks anymore and I hear that from the buyers.”
Could farmer Jack have better conclude a contract with a buyer? He doesn’t think so: “If you grow on a contract -based person, that does not mean that you cover all risks. You cover a piece of decrease, but if the quality is not sufficient, a buyer can still reject anything.” And that too has to do with the world market, Jack thinks: “The worse it goes on the market, the more critical buyers get on the quality of your product. Then they just try everything to get out of that contract and buy cheaper on the free market.”
And that is why Jack chose to grow his carrots without contractors: “With the risk that I take on the free market, there is simply more possible. A price can be quite exploded if there are shortages somewhere or when there are bad harvests somewhere in the world. I take that risk and I am also aware of it. But I am now trying to do it badly to avoid the avoiding avoiding avoiding it. be able to.”
“If they are not processed quickly, I have to let them rot.”
Because the carrots have been in the cooling for half a year, time is now starting: “If they are not processed within a few weeks, I have to let them rot in a controlled way.” And according to Jack there are quite a few costs attached to that: “I have already been running ten cents per kilogram of cooling costs anyway because the cooling cells have been running for half a year. In addition, the production costs of the cultivation and transport costs, then you are quickly at about 25 cents per kilo of roots. And then I don’t even talk about it.”
Jack hopes that there is a big buyer somewhere who can still help him out. People who would like to pick up small amounts of carrots to help, he kindly rejects: “I am sorry that I have to say it that way, but I am just too busy putting in such small amounts of energy. No matter how sweet I think it is that people want to help, feel that really wearing water to the sea at the moment. The harvest is really too big for that.”
The only other final destination for the carrots now seems that they end up as animal feed: “But I will not be able to put all the carrots in it. In addition, livestock farms do not want to pay for it, but they have to be delivered washed and I incur those costs.”
Because of this big surplus and the problems it causes him, Jack now thinks about other choices in the future: “Of course, the changes in the market make me worry more. It means that we should better think about which products we will continue to grow for the market. Root cultivation will no longer be interesting for me in the future, so I will have to look for a replacement.”
