No matter how difficult farming may sometimes be, arable farmer Menko Oosterhuis from Thesinge would advise every eighteen-year-old on a green training course to get on the tractor. “There is no better job than working on the land, in nature with growing crops.”
Oosterhuis says it in Stand van Noord-Nederland, the economy program of RTV Noord, RTV Drenthe and Omrop Friesland, together with the SER Noord-Nederland.
Position yourself as an entrepreneur, says Oosterhuis, who, together with his brother, farms in a nature-inclusive way at the Ommeland farm, close to the city of Groningen. He stopped growing traditional crops such as grain and beets and now grows lupines, field beans and parsley. He prefers to sell locally, but that is not easy.
“The search is: what suits our land, our location next to the city? And above all: how do we build a sustainable revenue model around it? There is a lack of clarity.”
And that is exactly the core of the problem: no one knows where agriculture is going. Political divisions and a fragmented agricultural field make it impossible to develop a long-term vision. Farmers have been waiting for years for a course they can follow.