The documentary will be broadcast on NH tonight at 5:10 PM ‘MORE – the battle for the last fields of Amsterdam’ broadcast. Maker Bart Melief followed the battle for the Lutkemeerpolder in Amsterdam-West for three years.
The last piece of fertile agricultural land in the city is located in the Lutkemeerpolder. And that is exactly where Amsterdam wants to build enormous distribution centers. But the plans are met with loud protests.
Filmmaker Bart Melief followed the developments around the Lutkemeerpolder for three years. “It concerns the last agricultural lands in the city. The municipality wants to build distribution centers there and a lot of people are against that. And then the question is who will win. On the one side are the municipality and the companies, on the other side the protests and the alternative plans of the activists. I follow that entire process.”
And all parties have their say in detail. Such as Trijntje Hoogendam, who has an ecological care farm in the Lutkemeerpolder and fears for the future, but also former councilor Marieke van Doorninck who argues that the construction is necessary and part of a growing city.
Melief: “I like that when you see the documentary and think: ‘one side has a point and so does the other’. So that you show the complexity of these kinds of processes and leave the final judgment to the viewer.”
And then there is the role of the consumer. “These industrial estates or distribution centers obviously did not come from nowhere. In these types of distribution centers, the packages that we order ourselves on the internet are sorted.”
Food park
Last year, a number of green protectors launched a plan to turn the Lutkemeerpolder into a food park. A place where Amsterdam residents can grow their own food. “I’ve really tried to look at it from different angles and now I really hope that the food park wins,” says Melief.
“I am convinced that if we turn the polder into a huge vegetable garden, where all Amsterdam residents can grow their own food, no one will say in 30 years: ‘If only we had built distribution centers there’.”